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THE LIFE 



OP 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



BY 



EDWARD EVERETT 



NEW YORK: 
SHELDON AND COMPANY 

BOSTON : GOULD AND LINCOLN. 

1860. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 

Sheldon and Company, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 

Southern District of New York. 



riverside, "Cambridge: 
stereotyped and printed by h. 0. hougaton. 



PKEFACE. 



The enterprising proprietors of the ^^En- 
cyclopaedia Britannica" requested the late 
Lord Macaulay to prepare the article on 
^^ Washington," for the new Edition of that 
Work now in course of publication. His 
other engagements prevented his comply- 
ing with their request, and thinking also 
that it would, on some accounts, be de- 
sirable that the memoir of Washington 
should be written by a countryman, he 
advised the Messrs. Black to apply to me. 
This they did in the month of March, 
1859, expressing the wish that the article 
should be furnished to them in Edin- 
burgh, in the month of October last. 
Though much occupied with previous 



IV PREFACE. 

engagements, and otherwise not favor- 
ably situated for cheerful mental effort, 
I thought it my duty to comply with 
the request of the Messrs. Black, re- 
gretting, however, that the time allowed 
me — besides constant interruptions — 
was too short to admit of careful re- 
search among the original materials for 
a life of Washington. 

In fact, I feel that some apology is 
due to the public, for attempting to com- 
press into the narrow compass of a vol- 
ume like this a career like that of 
Washington, which has been so fully 
treated in the great national works of 
Marshall, Sparks, and Irving. It will, 
however, I think, be generally felt to 
have been desirable, that a comprehen- 
sive memoir of our illustrious Country- 
man should be prepared by an American 
writer, for a work like the " EncyclopaBdia 
Britannica," and a republication in this 



PREFACE. V 

country follows as a matter of course. 
The purpose for which the memoir was 
written will; I trusty suf&ciently account 
for the necessary condensation of the 
narrative ; for the omission of many facts 
of importance, and for the superficial 
statement of others ; as also for the oc- 
casional mention of what is familiar to 
every American, but which may need 
explanation to the European reader. 

The historical materials of the follow- 
ing pages have been mainly derived 
from the standard works already allud- 
ed to, in which is contained every- 
thing of importance authentically known 
of the life and career of Washington. 
Diligent search among official papers 
and private letters will no doubt throw 
further light on matters of detail, espe- 
cially as far as his domestic life is con- 
cerned; but it is hardly to be expected 
that anything will be added to our 



Vi PREFACE 

knowledge of important events. To Mr. 
Sparks I am nnder especial obligations. 
No one can have occasion to write or 
to speak on the life of Washington^ 
however compendiously, without finding 
constant occasion to repeat the acknowl- 
edgment of Mr. Irving, who justly places 
him "among the greatest benefactors of 
our national literature." 

I regret that the valuable work of 
Mr. Benson J. Lossing, entitled "Mount 
Vernon and its Associations/' was not 
published till the following memoir was 
nearly completed, and it was conse- 
quently not in my power to make as 
much use as I could have wished of 
the stores of information contained in 
it. The same remark applies to the 
" Recollections and Memoirs of Wash- 
ington," by the late Mr. G. W. Parke 
CusTis, of which the excellent edition 
by Mr. Lossing appeared too late to 



1 



PREFACE. vii 

render me the assistance I might other- 
wise have derived from it. 

In what I have said of the important 
topic of President Washington's "Farewell 
Address," I have followed the footsteps^ at 
however great a distance, of the Hon. Hoe- 
ace BiNNEY, in his late exhaustive treatise 
on that subject ; which seems to me to put 
to rest the hitherto existing uncertainty 
as to the preparation of that most im- 
portant State-paper. 

Although the plan of the following 
pages did not admit of great detail as 
to the private life of Washington, I could 
not forbear to narrate at length the inci- 
dents of the closing scene, as minutely 
described by an eye-witness. The nature 
of the disease of which Washington died, 
and its professional treatment by the at- 
tending physicians, having been sometimes 
drawn in question, it is with much satis- 
faction that I am able to lay before the 



yiii PREFACE. 

reader, in the Appendix, a paper on that 
subject, written at my request, by my 
honored friend. Dr. James Jackson, the 
venerable head of his profession in this 

city. 

I have also, through the kindness of Mr. 
John A. Washington, procured from the 
archives of the Court in Fairfax County 
a copy of the of&cial inventory of General 
Washington's personal estate. A copy of 
Mrs. Washington's Will has also been kindly 
furnished me from the same quarter. These 
documents will be found in the Appendix. 
They have never, I believe, been published. 

I cannot close this preface without al- 
luding to the melancholy tidings which 
have reached this country, within a few 
days, of the premature decease of the 
most brilliant writer of the age, perhaps 
of any age of English literature, — at 
whose suggestion the preparation of the 



PEEFACE. ix 

following memoir was proposed to me by 
the publishers of the "Encyclopaedia Bri- 
tannica." Great as are the losses sus- 
tained by science and letters in Europe 
and America during the year 1859, the 
death of Lord Macaulay is, in some re- 
spects, the greatest. Of the other illus- 
trious persons who have been taken from 
us in the course of the year, some, as 
Humboldt, Hallam, and Irving, had at- 
tained advanced years, and nobly com- 
pleted the work given them to do. Pres- 
COTT, though leaving his last great w^ork 
half written, leaves with it three com- 
pleted histories, either of which would suf- 
fice for a reputation. Macaulay, at a time 
of life which, in the course of nature, 
admitted many years of added labor, has 
been called away in the midst of the 
triumphant prosecution of his great enter- 
prise. While the volumes already given 
to the world w^ill go down to the latest 



X • PREFACE. 

posterity as one of the most valuable 
contributions to the literature of the Eng- 
lish language, how keenly must we not 
regret, that they form at best but a moi- 
ety of the work, which might have been 
confidently expected from his wondrous 
23en ! With what sorrow must we not 
reflect, that the talent which could clothe 
with the interest of romance a period of 
English history not usually regarded as 
the most inviting ; that stores of informa- 
tion, collected by a memory of truly mi- 
raculous grasp, often from sources the 
most obscure and distant, and arranged 
with matchless skill, should be lost to us 
forever, and this at the time when they 
were most successfully employed for the 
admiration of the reading world ! Abso- 
lutely identifying himself with the scenes 
he described, and mingling with fervor, 
though under the guidance of laborious 
research, in the great contentions of the 



PREFACE. ■ xi 

times, it was scarcely possible that he 
should fall into no errors of judgment, 
and never form a mistaken estimate of 
character. One such has been keenly felt 
in this country. But his work owes some 
of its highest qualities to that earnest- 
ness of conviction and warmth of feeling, 
which may, in the manner alluded to, 
have occasionally warped his judgment. 

But admirable as he was as a writer, 
Lord Macaulay was still more admirable 
as a man. His principles were liberal, 
his emotions generous, his manners affa- 
ble, his life exemplary, his morals pure. 
The splendor of his page was, if possible, 
excelled by the brilliancy of his conver- 
sation. His personal intercourse was a 
perpetual feast of rational pleasure. The 
world admired the magnificence of his 
rhetoric, and contemplated with equal 
delight and wonder the profusion with 
which he poured forth the stores of his 



xii PKEFACE. 

memory, gathered from the literature of 
every language and every country. Those 
who knew him loved him for his amiable 
personal qualities ; for the unaJBfected 
meekness with which he bore his tran- 
scendent honors ; for the sunny cheerful- 
ness of his disposition, and the generous 
warmth of his heart. I cannot but reflect 
with melancholy satisfaction on the many 
happy hours passed in his society during 
four years of intimate acquaintance, and 
on the proofs of friendly regard with 
which he honored me to the very last 

days of his life. 

EDWARD EVERETT. 
Boston, 25th January, 1860. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Birth — Parentage — Genealogy — Emigration of tlie Fam- 
ily to America — Education of George Washington — 
Proposal to place him in the Navy of Great Britain — 
Influence of his Mother In the Formation of his Char- 
acter. • 19 



CHAPTER II. 

Washington commences Life as a Surveyor of Lord 
Fairfax's Estates — ^His Duties in that Capacity — First 
Military Appointment — Accompanies his Brother to 
Barbadoes — Takes the Small-Pox In the natural Way 
in that Island — Approach of the Seven Years' War — 
New Commission as Adjutant-General of the Northern 
Division. 38 



CHAPTER HI. 

Commencement of Settlements In the West — The Ohio 
Company — Hostile Movements of the French — Wash- 



XIV CONTENTS. 

ington's Perilous Expedition to Venango — Disastrous 
Campaign of 1754 — Braddock's Expedition and Defeat 
in 1755 — Arduous and Responsible Duties of Wash- 
ington during the War — Expedition against Fort Du- 
quesne — And its Capture. 53 



J 



CHAPTER IV. 

Retirement from the Army — Marriage — Election to the 
House of Burgesses and Character as a Member — His 
Occupations as a Planter, and business Habits — Visits 
the unsettled Parts of the State — Commencement of 
the Controversy with the Mother-Country — Mistaken 
Impression that Washington was ever lukewarm in the 
American Cause — Proofs of the Contrary — His early 
Career admirably calculated to fit him for the great 
Work of his Life. 83 



CHAPTEE V. 

Commencement of the War — Lexington and Concord — 
The Royal Army blockaded in Boston — Washington 
chosen Commander-in-Chief by the Continental Con- 
gress — Destitute Condition of the Army — Dorchester 
Heights fortified in the Spring of 1776 — Boston evac- 
uated by the Royal Forces — The War transferred to 
New York — Disastrous Battle of Long Island — Wash- 
ington retreats through New Jersey to Philadelphia — 



CONTENTS. XV 

Eecrosses the Delaware and surprises the Hessians at 
Trenton — Gains the Battle of Princeton and retrieves 
the Fortune of the Campaign. 104 

CHAPTER VI. 

Campaign of 1777 — Sir Wilham Howe sails from Staten 
Island and ascends the Chesapeake — The Battle of 
Brandy wine adverse to the Americans — Sir W. Howe 
occupies Philadelphia — Battle of Germantown — Ca- 
pitulation of Burgoyne — Washington in Winter-Quar- 
ters at Valley Forge — The Gates and Conway Cabal 
— Forged Letters — Campaign of 1778 — The French 
Alliance — Sir W. Howe evacuates Philadelphia — Bat- 
tle of Monmouth — Lee sentenced by a Court-Martial, 
and leaves the Army — The Count d'Estaing with a 
French Fleet arrives in the American Waters — Cam- 
paign of 1779 — No general Operation of the Main 
Body — Campaign of 1780 — Arrival of the First Divis- 
ion of the French Army under Rochambeau — Trea- 
son of Arnold — Fate of Andre — Campaign of 1781 — • 
Arrival of Count de Grasse with Keinforcements — Ca- 
pitulation of Cornwallis at Yorktown — Negotiations for 
Peace — Provisional Articles signed November, 1782 — 
Discontents in the American Army — The Newburg 
Address — Definitive Treaty of Peace — Washington re- 
signs his Commission to the Congress at Annapolis, 23d 
December, 1783. 130 



Xvi CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Wasliington retires to Mount Vernon — Visits the Coun- 
try west of the Alleghanies — Recommends opening a 
Communication between the Head Waters of the At- 
lantic Rivers and the Ohio — Agricultural Pursuits — 
His Views of Slavery — Critical State of the Country 
— Steps that led to the Formation of the present 
Government —^ The Federal Convention and Washing- 
ton its President — The Constitution framed — Adopted 
by the States — Washington elected the First Presi- 
dent of the United States, and inaugurated 30th of 
April, 1789. 154 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Washiusfton's Administration continued through two Terms 
of Office — Peculiar Difficulties at Home and Abroad 
— Tendency toward the Formation of Parties — The 
Cabinet divided — Growth ^ of Party-Spirit — Washing- 
ton unanimously reelected — Retirement of Jefferson 
and Hamilton from the Cabinet — War between France 
and England — Neutrality of the United States — Vio- 
lated by both the Belligerents — Offensive Proceedings 
of Genet, the French Minister — Mission of Jay to Eng- 
land — His Treaty unpopular — Attempt in the House 
of Representatives to withhold the Appropriations to 
carry it into Effect — Washington refuses to commu- 



CONTENTS. xvii 

nicate the Instructions under which it was negoti- 
ated. 1 75 



CHAPTER IX. 

Insurrection in Pennsylvania suppressed — Washington's 
Interest in Lafayette — His Son received at Mount 
Vernon — Close of the Second Term of Office and 
Farewell Address — Denunciation of the spurious Let- 
ters — Eetirement from the Presidency — Keturn to 
Mount Vernon — Rupture between the United States 
and France — Washington appointed Lieutenant- Gen- 
eral — Anticipations of the Conflict — Downfall of the 
Directory, and Accommodation with France. 205 



CHAPTER X. 

Sudden Attack of Illness in December, 1799 — Eapid 
Progress and Fatal Termination of the Disease — Pub- 
lic Mourning — Emancipation of his Slaves by Will — 
Mount Vernon — Personal Appearance and Habits — 
Religious Opinions — General Views of his Character 
— Testimony of Lord Erskine, of Mr. Fox, of Lord 
Brougham, of Fontanes, and Guizot — His Military 
Character — Natural Temperament — Genius for the 
Conduct of Affairs — Final Estimate. 236 



xviii CONTENTS. 

APPENDIX. 
No. I. 

On the last Illness of General Washington and its Pro- 
fessional Treatment by the Attending Physicians, by 
James Jackson, M. D., of Boston. 273 

No. II. 

Inventory of the Personal Property at Mount Vernon at 
the Time of General Washington's Death, returned to 
the Court of Fairfax County, Virginia, by the Sworn 
Appraisers of the Estate. 286 

No. m. 
The Will of Martha Washington of Mount Vernon. .318 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



CHAPTER I. 

Birth — Parentage — Genealogy — Emigration of the Fam- 
ily to America — Education of George Washington — 
Proposal to place him in the Navy of Great Britain — 
Influence of his Mother in the Formation of his Charac- 
ter. 

In the family record contained in a 
Bible which belonged to the mother of 
Washington^ and which is now in the 
possession of George Washington Bassett, 
of Hanover county, Virginia, who married 
a grandniece of Washington, the follow- 
ing entry is found : — 

" George Washington, son to Augustine 
and Mary his wife, was born y^ 11th day 
of February 173| about ten in the morn- 



20 THE LIFE OF 

ing, and was baptized the 3d of April 
following; Mr. Beverly Whiting and Cap- 
tain Christopher Brooks, godfathers, and 
Mrs. Mildred Gregory godmother." 

George Washington was accordingly 
born on the 22d of February, 1732, New 
Style, in the county of Westmoreland, in 
the parish of Washington, (so called 
from the family, whose seat it had been 
for three generations,) on Pope's Creek, 
a small tributary to the Potomac, and at 
the distance of about half a mile from its 
junction with that river. The house in 
which he was born was destroyed before 
the American Revolution, but a stone 
with a suitable inscription was placed 
upon the spot a few years since, by 
the late George Washington Parke Cus- 
tis, the grandson of Mrs. Washington. 
This spot has lately been ceded to the 
State of Virginia. 

The County of Westmoreland, famous 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 21 

as the birthplace not only of Washmg- 
ton but of several other eminent per- 
sons, — such as Eichard Henry Lee, who 
moved the resolution for declaring Inde- 
pendence in the Congress at Philadelphia 
in 1776; his three brothers, Thomas, Fran- 
cis, and Arthur, and his kinsman. General 
Henry Lee, all distinguished in their day; 
James Monroe, the fifth President of the 
United States; and Bushrod Washington, 
a nephew of the General and a Justice 
of the Supreme Court, — hes between 
the Potomac and Eappahannoc rivers, in 
what is called the northern neck of Vir- 
ginia. Notwithstanding the notoriety of 
the facts, a statement is sometimes made 
in British publications, and has been re- 
peated by a respectable writer within the 
past year, (1858,) that George Washing- 
ton was born in England.* 

* The Editor of the Cormcallis Papers. The error was 
corrected in an erratum. 



22 THE LIFE OF 

Augustine Washington, tlie father of 
the General, was twice married. His first 
wife was Jane Butler, by whom he had 
three sons and a daughter, namely, Butler, 
who died in infancy, Lawrence, Augustine, 
and Jane, the last-named of whom also 
died in childhood. His second wife was 
Mary Ball, to whom he was married on the 
6th of March, 1730. By this marriage he 
had six children, namely, George, Betty. 
Samuel, John Augustine, Charles, and Mil- 
dred, the last of whom died in infancy. 

George Washington was the great-grand- 
son of John Washington, who, with a 
brother named Lawrence, emigrated to 
Virginia in 1657. They were great-grand- 
sons of Lawrence Washington, sometime 
Mayor of Northampton, and the first lay 
proprietor of the manor of Sulgrave, in 
Northamptonshire, which was granted to 
him in 1538. Their eldest brother. Sir Wil- 
ham Washington, married a half-sister of 



GEOEGE WASHINGTON. 23 

George Villiers, the famous Duke of 
Buckingham. This connection indicates, 
if it did not cause, a leaning of the fam- 
ily toward the Koyal side in the civil 
wars. Another of the name, Sir Henry 
Washington, a relative though not a 
brother, signalized himself by his perse- 
vering gallantry in sustaining the siege 
of Worcester against the Republican forces. 
Of the two brothers who came to Vir- 
ginia, Lawrence had been a student at 
Oxford • John had resided on an estate 
at South Cave in Yorkshire, which gave 
rise to an erroneous tradition among his 
descendants, that their ancestor came from 
the North of England. 

There is no doubt that the politics of 
the family determined the two brothers 
John and Lawrence to emigrate to Vir- 
ginia, that colony being the favorite resort 
of the Cavaliers, during the government 
of Cromwell, as New England was the re- 



24 THE LIFE OF 

treat of the PuritanSj in the period which 
preceded the Commonwealth. John Wash- 
ington and his brother took up lands and 
became successful planters in Virginia. 
The former, soon after his arrival, rose to 
the rank of Colonel in the Indian wars, 
and gave his name to the parish in which 
he lived. He married Ann Pope, by whom 
he had two sons, Lawrence and John, and 
a daughter. Lawrence, the oldest son, 
married Mildred Warner, of the neighbor- 
ing county of Gloucester, and had three 
children, John, Augustine, and Mildred. 
The second son, Augustine, was the father 
of George Washington. 

About fifty years before the emigration 
from England, the family removed from 
Sulgrave to Brington (near Althorpe), in 
Northamptonshire. The name of Wash- 
ington may still be seen on the gravestones 
in the church of that and other parishes 
in the county. The original grantee of 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 25 

Sulgrave was probably born at Warton, in 
Lancashire, where his father is known to 
have lived. In the next generation after 
the emigration to America, another of the 
family, perhaps a brother, passed to the 
Continent and established himself in Ba- 
varia, where the descendants, bearing the 
family name and somewhat resembling 
General George Washington in personal 
appearance, are still found. 

It may be mentioned as a somewhat 
striking fact, and one I believe not hither- 
to adverted to, that the families of Wash- 
ington and Franklin, — the former the 
great leader of the American Eevolution, 
the latter not second to any of his patri- 
otic associates, — were established for sev- 
eral generations in the same central coun- 
ty of Northamptonshire, and within a few 
miles of each other ; the Washingtons, at 
Brington and Sulgrave, belonging to the 
landed gentry of the county and in the 



i 



26 THE LIFE OF 

great civil war supporting the royal side ; 
the Franklins^ at the village of Ecton, liv- 
ing on the produce of a farm of tliir- 
ty acres and the earnings of their trade 
as blacksmiths, and espousing, — some of 
them at least, and the father and uncle of 
Benjamin Franklin among the number, — 
the principles of the non-conformists. Their 
respective emigrations, germs of great 
events in History, took place, — that of 
John Washington, the great-grandfather 
of George, in 1657, to loyal Virginia; — 
that of Josiah Franklin, the father of 
Benjamin, about the year 1685, to the 
metropolis of Puritan New England. 

The genealogy of George Washington 
is a matter of greater importance to the 
memory of his ancestors than to his own ; 
he throws back far greater glory than he 
can inherit. Nevertheless, it may be a 
matter of curiosity to note, that the fam- 
ily and name are traced by genealogists 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 27 

to the twelfth century, and to the coun- 
ty of Durham. Among those who held 
manorial estates in that region, in the 
period succeeding the Norman Conquest, 
was William de Hertburn, so called from 
his estate, probably the modern Hartburn 
on the Tees. This estate was exchanged 
by him for that of Wessyngton, and with 
it the family name, which afterwards 
passed into "Washington. From this per- 
son thus designated, the family of Wash- 
ington, in its various branches, and now 
widely s|)read in England, on the Con- 
tinent of Europe, and in the United 
States, is descended. For further de- 
tails on this subject, — for which the lim- 
its of this work ajfford no room, — the 
reader is referred to the Appendix to 
the first volume of Mr. Sparks's admi- 
rable edition of the "Writings of Wash- 
ington," and to the first volume of his 
Life, by the late honored and lamented 



28 THE LIFE OF 

Nestor of American literature. General 
Washington's own feelings on the gene- 
alogy of his family are intimated in his 
answer to a letter from Sir Isaac Heard, 
Garter King at Arms, in 1792. Sir Isaac 
having addressed a letter to Washington, 
at that time President of the United 
States, making inquiry about his gene- 
alogy, the President, in his reply, says: 
"This is a subject to which I confess I 
have paid very little attention. My time 
has been so much occupied in the busy 
and active scenes of life from an early 
period of it, that but a small portion of 
it could have been devoted to researches 
of this nature, even if my inclination 
or particular circumstances should have 
prompted to the inquiry." 

Shortly after the birth of George Wash- 
ington, his father removed his family 
from the county of Westmoreland to that 
of Stafford, and established himself on an 



I 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 29 

estate upon the eastern bank of the Eap- 
pahannoc River^ opposite Fredericksburg, 
where he died in 1743^ leaving a valua- 
ble landed property to his widow and 
five children. To his oldest son, Law- 
rence, he gave an estate near Hunting 
Creek, on the Potomac River, afterwards 
called Mount Yernon ; to George, the 
oldest son of the second marriage, the 
estate opposite Fredericksburg ; and to 
each of the other sons a plantation of 
six or seven hundred acres; — the income 
of the whole being left within the con- 
trol of the mother, till the sons respec- 
tively should come of age. 

The mother was a woman of superior 
intelligence and energy, and ruled her 
family and household with a firm hand. 
The means of education at that time, 
compared with the present day, were 
scanty in all the Anglo-American colonies, 
but especially at the South, where a 



30 ^ THE LIFE OF 

larger portion of the inhabitants lived on 
their landed estates, and the population 
was less compact. The sons of affluent 
planters were sometimes sent " home," as 
it was called, and placed at the English 
schools and universities, and afterwards 
at the inns of court ; but for others, who 
for any cause were unable to avail them- 
selves of these advantages, the instruction 
to be had at the local schools in the 
Southern colonies did not extend beyond 
the ordinary branches of an English edu- 
cation. George "Washington was taught 
reading, writing, book-keeping, and at a 
later period surveying ; an important oc- 
cupation at that time, being liberally com- 
pensated, and affording facilities for find- 
ing out and entering valuable ungranted 
lands in the almost boundless wilderness, 
which lay west of the settled parts of the 
country. Some of the manuscript books 
kept by him at school are still preserved. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 31 

They are marked by neatness, method^ 
skill in the use of figures, in the con- 
struction of tables, and in the delineation 
of plans ; — in a word, by the display 
of the favorite tastes which he carried 
through life, and manifested in the busi- 
ness details of military and civil affairs 
of importance. 

According to still existing traditions, 
he evinced in his boyhood the military 
taste, which seems to have been heredi- 
tary in his family. The self-elected but 
willingly obeyed leader of his comrades, 
he formed them into companies for their 
juvenile battles. His early repute for 
veracity and justice, with his athletic 
prowess beyond his years, made him the 
chosen umpire of their disputes. He 
wrestled, leaped, ran, threw the bar, and 
rode with the foremost. A spot is still 
pointed out, where, in his boyhood, he 
threw a stone across the Rappahannoc ; 



32 THE LIFE OF 

he was proverbially strong of arm ; in 
manhood he had one of the largest hands 
ever seen;* and he was through life a 
bold and graceful horseman. 

Among his manuscripts still in exist- 
ence, there is one, written under thirteen 
years of age, which deserves to be men- 
tioned as containing striking indications 
of early maturity. The piece referred to 
is entitled "Rules of Civility and Decent 
Behavior in Company and Conversation." 
These rules are written out in the form 
of maxims, to the number of one hun- 
dred and ten. "They form," says Mr. 
Sparks, who gives a considerable speci- 
men of them, "a minute code of regula- 
tions for building up the habits of morals 
and manners and good conduct in very 

* The late Hon. Timothy Pickering, who was Secre- 
tary of State under Washington and the elder President 
Adams, said, in my hearing, that General Washington 
was the only man whom he ever knew, that had a larger 
hand than hunself. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 33 

young persons." Whether they were taken 
in a body from some manual of educa- 
tion^ or compiled by Washington himself 
from various books, or framed from his 
own youthful observation and reflection, 
is unknown. The first is, perhaps, the 
more probable supposition. If compiled 
by a lad under thirteen, and still more 
if the fruit of his own meditations, they 
would constitute a most extraordinary ex- 
ample of early prudence and thoughtful- 
ness. Some of the rules, which form a 
part of this youthful code of manners and 
morals, had their influence over Washing- 
ton and gave a complexion to his habits, 
through life. 

Washington's early education did not 
extend beyond his own language, nor 
was that taught grammatically either in 
England or this country a hundred years 
ago. The grammatical rules of the Eng- 
lish tongue were first learned from the 



34 THE LIFE OF 

study of the Latin language. Washington 
gave some attention to the French in 
after-life, when the armies of Count de 
Rochambeau were placed under his com- 
mand; but he never attempted to speak 
or write it. By long practice, attentive 
reading of good authors, and scrupulous 
care in the preparation of his letters and 
other compositions, he acquired a correct 
and perspicuous English style. 

While he was still at school, a project 
was formed by some of his relatives and 
friends, which, if it had taken effect, 
would have changed the entire course of 
his life. His oldest brother, Lawrence, 
had been an officer in the war lately 
waged to avenge the loss of " Captain 
Jenkins's ears;" he had served as a cap- 
tain on the Spanish Main, and formed 
friendly relations with General Wentworth 
and Admiral Vernon. Observing the mili- 
tary turn of his brother George, he nai> 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 35 

arally thought he should promote his 
advancement in hfe by placing him in 
the British service. A midshipman's war- 
rant was obtained for him, no doubt 
through Admiral Vernon's interest ; but 
the prophetic heart of the mother re- 
belled at the last moment^ and the proj- 
ect was abandoned, although his luggage, 
it is said, had been sent on board a ship 
of war lying in the Potomac. 

Washington is unquestionably to be 
added to the list of eminent men whose 
characters have been moulded by a moth- 
er's influence. The control of their chil- 
dren's property, devolved upon her by the 
will of her husband, shows his confidence in 
her discretion and energy; and tradition 
represents her as a woman of vigorous char- 
acter, fully equal to the trust. The mod- 
est dwelling in Fredericksburg, in which 
she passed the latter part of her life, is 
still standing, and, in its unpretending 



36 THE LIFE OF 

style and dimensions, forms a striking 
contrast with the ambitious, half-finished 
monument over her grave. She educated 
her children in habits of frugality, dili- 
gence, and virtue. Books, at that time, 
were few 3 — the luxuries, not the daily 
food of the mind, even among persons of 
fortune and leisure. With those in nar- 
rower circumstances, the range of reading 
did not extend much beyond the Bible, 
manuals of devotion, the sermons of some 
standard divine, and books of practical 
piety. Among the few books belonging 
to the elder generation, and still pre- 
served at Mount Vernon, is a well-worn 
copy of Sir Matthew Hale's "Contempla- 
tions," a volume which had belonged to 
George Washington's father, and in which 
the names of his two wives, Jane and 
Mary, are written, each in her own hand- 
writing, on the blank page. It would not 
be difficult to point out in the character 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 37 

of Washington some practical exemplifica- 
tion of the maxims of the Christian life, 
as laid down by that illustrious magis- 
trate. 

It is worthy of remark, that, although 
he had not himself received a college 
education, Washington entertained decided 
opinions of its utility. He appropriated 
the shares in the Potomac and James 
River Canal, presented to him by the 
legislature of Virginia, for the endow- 
ment of collegiate institutions, and recom- 
mended, in his last annual message to 
Congress, the foundation of a national 
university at the seat of the general 
government. 



8 THE LIFE OF 



CHAPTER II. 

Washington commences Life as a Surveyor of Lord 
Fairfax's Estates — His Duties in that Capacity — First 
Military Appointment — Accompanies his Brother to 
Barbadoes — Takes the Small-Pox in the natural Way 
in that Island — Approach of the Seven Years' War — 
New Commission as Adjutant- General of the Northern 
Division. 

We have now reached the period in 
the Hfe of Washington^ when he may be 
considered as passing from boyhood to 
youth, and when the serious, though un- 
conscious, training for his great public ca- 
reer began. His older brother Lawrence, 
who stood to him in many respects in 
the place of a parent, had removed to 
the estate near Hunting Creek to which 
he gave the name of Mount Yernon, in 
honor of his friend the " gallant Vernon," 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 39 

the commander of the naval expedition 
against the Spanish Main^ commemorated 
in "Thomson's Seasons." George had ever 
been a favorite with his brother Lawrence, 
and on leaving school went to reside at 
Mount Yernon. His time was passed, in 
the pleasant season of the year, in the 
usual round of plantation employment, 
visiting, and sports; and in the winter 
was devoted to his favorite study of sur- 
veying. By way of practice, accurate 
plans were taken by him of Hunting 
Creek and the neighboring estates, some 
of which are still preserved among his 
papers. 

His brother Lawrence had lately mar- 
ried the daughter of Mr. WilKam Fairfax, 
the proprietor of the neighboring prop- 
erty of Belvoir and the near relative of 
Lord Fairfax, who was at that time his 
guest at that plantation. Lord Fairfax 
was the owner of immense domains in 



40, THE LIFE OF 

Virginia. He had inherited through his 
mother, the daughter of Lord Culpepper 
the original grantee, a vast tract of land, 
originally including the entire territory 
between the Potomac and Rappahannoc 
rivers. The grant was probably intended 
to be bounded on the west by the Blue 
Ridge. But the geography of the interior 
of the American continent was but little 
known ; grants were made in the early 
charters of all the lands lying between 
certain rivers, (supposed in all cases to 
run due east and west from the moun- 
tains to the sea,) or between certain 23ar- 
allels of latitude from ocean to ocean. 
The land-agents of Lord Fairfax were 
not slow in making the discovery, that 
the upper waters of the Potomac pene- 
trated the Blue Ridge, and that conse- 
quently his Lordship's possessions might 
be construed to extend far into the val- 
ley of the Shenandoah. By way of con- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 41 

firming his claim to these extensive 
territories, he left the residence of his 
kinsman at Belvoir, built a substantial 
stone-house in the valley, called Green- 
way Court; and there established himself 
in a kind of baronial state in the wilder- 
ness. 

Lord Fairfax was a man of cultivated 
mind, educated at Oxford, the associate 
of the wits of London, the author of one 
or two papers in the "Spectator,"* and an 
habitue of the j)olite circles of the metrop- 
olis. A disappointment in love is said to 
have cast a shadow over his after-life, 
and to have led him to pass his time in 
voluntary exile on his Virginia estates, 
watching and promoting the rapid devel- 

* In Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary \fQ Ye,di(\: "The 
biographer of Lord Fairfax informs us he was one of the 
writers of the Spectator^ but the annotators on that work 
have not been able to ascertain any of his papers." He 
may have been the author of some of the anonymous 
communications sent to the "Letter-box," to which Steele 
often had recourse in making up a number. 



42 THE LIFE OF 

opment of the resources of the countrj^, 
following the hounds through the prime- 
val wilderness, and cheerino; his solitary 

' CD %/ 

hours by reading and a limited society 
of chosen friends. George Washington 
had early attracted his notice as a fre- 
quent visitor at Bel voir. 

About the time that George came to 
reside at Mount Vernon, George William 
Fairfax, the son of the proprietor of Bel- 
voir, had married the daughter of Colonel 
Carey, of Hampton, on James Eiver, and 
had brought home his bride and her sis- 
ter to his father's house. Washington's 
boyish manuscripts betray the secret of 
a youthful but not successful passion for 
a person, whom he does not name, but 
whom he describes in prose and verse as 
a "lowland beauty," and whom tradition 
represents as Miss Grimes, who afterwards 
married a Colonel Lee and became the 
mother of General Harry Lee of the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 43 

Revolutionary war^ at all times a favorite 
of Washington, perhaps on the mother's 
account. The confidential letters of Wash- 
ington to his young friends represent him 
as finding solace at Belvoir, in the society 
of the bride's sister, for the still lingering 
regrets of his boyish " lowland " disap- 
pointment. 

But his residence at Mount Yernon 
and his visits at Belvoir were productive 
of much more important results, and 
formed a very im.portant link in the 
chain of events, which decided his for- 
tunes for life. The vast possessions of 
Lord Fairfax were as yet unsurveyed, 
and "squatters" (as settlers without title 
are called in the United States) were 
beginning to seat themselves on the best 
of his lands. There was at this period 
no general system of public surveys exe- 
cuted by authority, and the individual 
proprietor, after obtaining his grant, was 



44 THE LIFE OF 

obliged to procure the survey of his lands, 
by licensed surveyors, on his o\vn respon- 
sibility. Lord Fairfax had formed so fa- 
vorable an ojDinion of young Washington, 
that he determined to employ him on 
the important service of surveying his 
extensive estates; and he set off on his 
first expedition just a month from the 
time he had completed his sixteenth 
year, accompanied by young Fairfax, the 
son of the proprietor of Belvoir. 

The best idea of the nature of the ser- 
vice in which he was now engaged, will 
be formed from an extract from one of 
his own letters : — " Your letter," says he 
to his correspondent, "gave me the more 
pleasure, as I received it among bar- 
barians and an uncouth set of people. 
Since you received my letter of October 
last, I have not slept above three or four 
nights in a bed ; but after walking a 
good deal all the day, I have lain down 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 45 

before the fire upon a little hay, straw, 
fodder, or a bear-skin, — whichsoever was 
to be had, — with man, wife, and chil- 
dren, like dogs and cats ; and happy is 
he who gets the berth nearest the fire. 
Nothing would make it pass off tolerably 
but a good reward. A doubloon is my 
constant gain every day that the weather 
will permit my going out, and sometimes 
six pistoles. The coldness of the weather 
will not allow of my making a long stay, 
as the lodging is rather too cold for the 
time of year. I have never had my 
clothes off, but have lain and slept in 
them, except the few nights I have been 
in Fredericksburg." 

The hardships of this occupation will 
not be fully comprehended by those who 
are acquainted with the surveyor's duties, 
only as they are practised in old and 
thickly settled countries. In addition to 
the want of accommodation, and the other 



46 THE LIFE OF 

privations alluded to in the letter just 
cited, the service was attended with seri- 
ous peril. In new countries of which 
"squatters" have begun to take posses- 
sion, the surveyor is at all times a highly 
unwelcome visitant, and sometimes goes 
about his duty at the risk of his life. 
Besides this, a portion of the country 
traversed by Washington formed a part 
of that debatable land, the disputed right 
to which was the original moving cause 
of the Seven Years' war. The French 
were already in motion, both from Canada 
and Louisiana, to preoccupy the banks of 
the Ohio, and the savages in their inter- 
est roamed the intervening country up 
to the settlements of Virginia. 

Washington was employed in the sur- 
vey of Lord Fairfax's lands for three 
years, passing the pleasant season in the 
wilderness, and spending his winters at 
Fredericksburg; and Mount Vernon. The 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 47 

out-door, active life fortified his health 
and strengthened his. frame. His " surveys 
were executed in part in the very region 
which became the theatre of his cam- 
paigns in the Seven Years' war. While 
engaged in the field he saw something 
of life and manners among the friendly 
Indians. He probably availed himself of 
opportunities to inspect valuable tracts of 
migranted land, which afterwards turned 
to good account At a time when the 
minds of men were but little awakened 
to the future of the then unsettled West, 
he learned from actual observation to 
appreciate its vast importance. He soon 
became distinguished for the accuracy of 
his surveys, and obtained the appoint- 
ment of a public surveyor, which ena- 
bled him to enter his plans as legally 
valid, in the county ofl&ces. The imper- 
fect manner in which land-surveys at 
that time were generally executed, led in 



48 THE LIFE OF 

the sequel to constant litigation; but an 
experienced practitioner in the Western 
courts pronounced, in after-years, that of 
all the surveys which had come within 
his knowledge, those of "Washington could 
^ alone be depended upon.* 

His experience in border life prepared 
him for his military education, which was 
now about to commence. No military 
schools existed at that time even in the 
mother-country ; as late as the last gene- 
ration, the Duke of Wellington was sent 
to a military school at Angers, in France, 
for want of institutions of that kind at 
home. The restlessness of the French 
and Indians, on the frontier, to which 
allusion has just been made, had as early 
as 1751 begun to create uneasiness in 
several of the Anglo-American colonies. 
The Assembly of Virginia divided that 
province into several military commands 

* Everett's OratiotiSj vol. iii. p. 440. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 49 

or districts, and in one of tliem Washing- 
ton, now nineteen years of age, received 
the appointment of adjutant-general, with 
the rank of major. His duty was to as- 
semble and exercise the militia, inspect 
their arms, and train them for actual ser- 
vice in the event of a rupture. In con- 
nection with these duties, he gave his 
time and thoughts to his own preparation 
for the field. He read military treatises, 
acquainted himself with the manual exer- 
cise, and through the instructions of his 
brother and other officers of the late war 
whom he met at Mount Vernon, became 
expert in the use of the sword. 

In these occupations he was interrupt- 
ed by a painful domestic occurrence. His 
brother Lawrence, naturally of a feeble 
constitution, had suffered in his health 
from the effects of the campaign on the 
Spanish Main. He became consumptive 
and was ordered to the West Indies. 

5 



60 THE LIFE OF 

George was selected to accompany him. 
They sailed for Barbadoes in September, 
1751, and arrived after a five weeks' 
voyage. Experiencing no permanent re- 
lief in that island, the invalid determined 
to remove to Bermuda in the spring, and 
George was sent back to Virginia, to con- 
duct the wife of Lawrence to the last- 
named island. He arrived in February, 
after a most tempestuous voyage ; but 
the rapidly declining health of his brother 
caused the other portion of the arrange- 
ment just mentioned to be abandoned. 
While in Barbadoes in the autumn of 
1751, George took the small-pox in the 
natural way. He had it severely, but 
owing to the mildness of the climate, 
the strength of his constitution, and good 
medical aid, he recovered in three weeks. 
He was, however, slightly marked through 
life. His journals kept at Barbadoes evince 
the spirit of accurate observation which 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 51 

was SO prominent a feature of his cliarac- 
ter. The very first campaign of the Eev- 
olutionary war gave proof^ that his hav- 
ing had the small-pox in his youth was 
one of the providential events of his life. 
That loathsome disease, not yet robbed 
of its terrors by vaccination, made its 
appearance in the besieging army before 
Boston, but the life of its commander 
was safe. 

His brother Lawrence returned home 
in the summer of 1752 -, he had derived 
no material improvement from his voyage, 
and died in a short time at the age of 
thirty-four, leaving a large fortune to an 
infant daughter. George was appointed 
one of the executors of his will, by which, 
in the event of the daughter's decease. 
Mount Yernon was bequeathed to him. 
Although the youngest of the executors, 
in consequence of his • more thorough 
knowledge of his brother's affairs the 



52 THE LIFE OF 

responsible management of his extensive 
estates devolved upon him. He did not^ 
however, allow these private engagements 
to interfere with his public duties. As 
the 23rob ability of a collision on the fron- 
tier increased, greater attention was paid 
to the military organization of the prov- 
ince. On the arrival of Governor Din- 
widdle in 1752, it was divided into four 
military districts ; and Washington's ap- 
pointment was renewed as adjutant-gen- 
eral of the northern division, in which 
several counties were included. The du- 
ties devolving upon him, under this new 
commission, in attending the reviews of 
the militia and superintending their exer- 
cises, were performed with a punctuality 
and zeal, which rapidly drew toward him 
the notice and favor of the community. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 53 



CHAPTER III. 

Commencement of Settlements in the West — The Ohio 
Company — Hostile Movements of the French — Wash- 
ington's Perilous Expedition to Venango — Disastrous 
Campaign of 1754 — Braddock's Expedition and Defeat 
in 1755 — Arduous and Responsible Duties of Wash- 
ington during the War — Expedition against Fort Du- 
quesne — And its Capture. 

We now approach the commencement 
of Washington's public career, and of a 
train of events of great magnitude and 
interest; — a service which, though on a 
small scale and performed at the age 
of twenty-one, developed much of the 
mature strength of his character. The 
struggle of France and England for the 
exclusive possession of the Eastern por- 
tion of the American continent, (for the 
vast region lying West of the Mississippi 



54 THE LIFE OF 

was as yet unknown to both,) was a 
principal cause of the European wars of 
the last century. England had established 
her prosperous colonies along the Atlantic 
coast. France had intrenched herself at 
the mouth of the St. Lawrence and the 
Mississippi, and aimed, by a chain of 
posts drawn North and South through 
the interior, to prevent the progress of 
the English colonists Westward, and con- 
fine them within constantly reduced lim- 
its; hoping, no doubt, ultimately to drive 
them from the continent. This struggle 
postponed the civilization of America for 
a hundred years. It was the great na- 
tional drama of the eighteenth century. 
In its progress, it subjected the entire 
frontier to all the horrors of a remorse- 
less border and savage war ; and it re- 
sulted in the expulsion of the French 
from the North American continent ; in 
reducing the British dominions to a por- 



X 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 55 

tion of the territory (the Canadian prov- 
inces) which had been wrested from 
France^ and in the estabHshment of 
the Independence of the United States 
of America. Everything which preceded 
the treaty of peace at Aix-la-Chapelle in 
1748, may be considered as prehminary 
to the grand series of events on which 
we now enter, and in which Washington 
is immediately to perform a conspicuous, 
and eventually, the most important part. 
Up to tl:% time, the fertile region West 
of the All&^hany Mountains, and now 
containing nearly half of the population 
of the United States, was, with the ex- 
ception of a few scattered French trading 
posts and missionary stations, unoccupied 
by civilized man. In the Western part 
of the State of Maine, in the entire 
State of Vermont, and in the Western 
portions of New York, Pennsylvania, and 
Virginia, in Kentucky and the States 



66 THE LIFE OF 

South of it in the rear of the Caro- 
linas and Georgia, in the entire territory 
Northwest of the Ohio, and West of the 
Mississippi, — a region now inhabited by 
fifteen miUions of people, — there did not, 
in the middle of the last century, arise 
the smoke of a single hamlet inhabited 
by the descendants of Englishmen. On 
the return of peace between France and 
England in 1748, the Ohio Company 
was formed. Its object was the occupa- 
tion and settlement of the fertile country 
Southeast of the Ohio and West of the 
Alleghany Mountains. It consisted of a 
small number of gentlemen in Virginia 
and Maryland, with one associate in Lon- 
don, Mr. Thomas Hanbury, a distinguished 
merchant of that city. Lawrence Wash- 
ington was largely interested and actively 
engaged in the enterprise. A grant of 
five hundred thousand acres of land was 
obtained of the crown, by the terms of 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 57 

which the company were obhgecl to intro- 
duce a hundred famiHes into the territory 
within seven years^ and to build a fort 
and furnish a garrison adequate for their 
defence. Out of this germ of private en- 
terprise grew the Seven Years' war, and 
by no doubtful chain of cause and effect, 
the war of American Independence. 

The Ohio Company proceeded to fulfil 
the conditions of their grant. Prepara- 
tions for Indian trade were made ; a road 
across the mountains, substantially on the 
line of that constructed in after-years by 
federal authority, was laid out; and an 
agent sent to conciliate the Indian tribes. 
In 1752 a treaty was entered into be- 
tween commissioners of Virginia and the 
Indians, by which the latter agreed not 
to molest any settlements which might 
be formed by the company on the South- 
eastern side of the Ohio. On the faith 
of this compact, twelve families of ad- 



58 THE LIFE OF 

venturers from Virginia, headed by Cap- 
tain Gist, proceeded to establish them- 
selves on the banks of the Monongahela. 
These movements were viewed with 
jealousy by the French colonial govern- 
ment in Canada. Although Great Britain 
and France had recently concluded a 
treaty of peace, emissaries were sent 
from Canada to induce the Indians on 
the Ohio to break up the friendly agree- 
ment just entered into with Virginia. 
Some of the traders, it was said, were 
seized and sent to France ; and by orders 
of the French . government a fort was im- 
mediately commenced on a branch of 
French Creek, about fifteen miles South 
of Lake Erie, as a position from which 
the Indians could be controlled and the 
Virginians held in check. These proceed- 
ings were promptly reported to Governor 
Dinwiddie by the servants of the Ohio 
Company, and the governor immediately 



GEOKGE WASHINGTON. 59 

determined to make them the subject of 
remonstrance addressed to the French 
commandant; rather, it may be supposed, 
with a view to ascertain precisely the 
facts of the case by a special messenger, 
than on a supposition that movements 
of this kind could be arrested by any- 
thing less than the interference of the 
supreme authority at Paris and London. 

It was no easy matter to transmit an 
ofi&cial message, in the state of the coun- 
try at that time, from the banks of 
James Eiver to the shores of Lake Erie. 
The distance to be travelled was between 
five and six hundred miles, the greater 
part of the way through a wilderness. 
Mountains were to be climbed and rivers 
crossed; tribes of savages occupied a con- 
siderable portion of the intervening space, 
and all the hazards of an Indian frontier, 
in a state of daily increasing irritation, 
were to be encountered. To all these 



60 THE LIFE OF 

difficulties, the season of the year (it 
was now November) added obstacles all 
but insuperable, in the absence of arti- 
ficial communications. It is not to be 
wondered at, that some persons to whom 
Governor Dinwiddle first proposed the 
service should excuse themselves. It was 
ofiered to Major Washington and by him 
promptly accepted, although the decease 
of his brother had thrown upon him do- 
mestic duties, which would have furnished 
an honest excuse for shrinking from the 
laborious and dangerous commission. But 
Washington never shrank from the per- 
formance of a duty. He received his in- 
structions, and started from Williamsburg 
on the 30th of November, 1753. 

He was joined at Captain Gist's settle- 
ment on the Monongahela by that brave 
pioneer of civilization. At Logstown he 
held a conference with Tanacharison, 
who was the chief or half-king of the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 61 

friendly Indians seated there, and who, 
with two or three others of the natives, 
accompanied Washington and Gist first 
to Yenango, — a post on the French 
Creek, — and then to the head-quarters 
of M. de St. Pierre, the French comman- 
dant, a short distance farther to the North. 
Here Washington performed his errand, 
by dehvering his despatches and receiving 
the reply of the commandant; carefully 
noting the character and strength of the 
place, and gaining such information as he 
was able of the extent of the military 
operations in progress. The return jour- 
ney was a series of the severest ex- 
posures and the most imminent perils. 
Their wearied horses were sent by land 
back to Yenango ; while Washington and 
his associates in a canoe descended the 
river, swollen by wintry rains and at 
best of hazardous navigation. At Yenan- 
go, they had reason to suspect hostile 



62 THE LIFE OF 

intentions from the French and savages, 
and Washington and Gist, with a single 
Indian guide, in order to hasten their 
return to the settlements, started through 
the wilderness on foot, with their packs 
on their shoulders and guns in their 
hands. They were dogged through the 
woods by Indians in the French interest. 
Their guide exerted all the arts of savage 
cunning, after leading them out of their 
path in the forest, to get possession of 
Washington's gun, but without success. 
Baffled by their wariness, and perceiving 
them at nightfall to be fatigued by the 
weary march, he turned upon them, and 
at a distance of fifteen feet fired with his 
double-barrelled rifle ; but without injur- 
ing either of them. Gist would have put 
him to death on the spot, but Washington 
insisted upon sparing his life, justly as it 
had been forfeited. After detaining him 
to a late hour, they allowed him to es- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 63 

cape, and in order to forestall an attack, 
from such confederates as he might have 
lurking in the woods, they pursued their 
own journey, weary as they were, through 
the long December's night. 

Not doubting that the savages would 
soon be on their trail, they dared not 
stop till they reached the Alleghany 
Eiver, a clear and rapid stream, which 
they hoped to be able to cross on the 
ice, — their only consolation under the 
stinging severity of the weather. The 
river unfortunately was neither frozen 
across nor wholly open ; but fringed with 
ice for fifty yards on each shore, and the 
middle stream filled with cakes of ice 
furiously drifting down the current. With 
"one poor hatchet," to use Washington's 
own expression, they commenced the con- 
struction of a raft, which it took them all 
day to complete. They launched it upon 
the river, but were soon so surrounded 



64 THE LIFE OF 

and wedged in by drifting masses of ice, 
that tliey expected every moment that 
their raft would go to pieces, and they 
themselves be hurled into the water, at 
the extreme peril of their lives. Wash- 
ington put out his pole to stop the raft, 
till the fields of ice should float by ; but 
the raft was urged with so much vio- 
lence upon his pole, that he himself, 
holding to it, was thrown into the river, 
where it was ten feet deep. He saved 
his life by clinging to a log ; but unable 
to force the raft to either shore, they 
were compelled to leave it, and passed 
the night on an island in the middle of 
the river. So intense was the cold, that 
the hands and feet of Captain Gist, an 
experienced woodsman, were frozen. Hap- 
pily the river froze wholly over during 
the night, and they were enabled to cross 
to the opposite bank in the morning on 
the ice. To this circumstance they were 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 65 

indebted no doubt for their escape from 
the tomahawk of the pursuing savages. 

The foregoing adventure has been given 
in some detail from Washington's official 
rejDort, which was sent by Governor Din- 
widdie to London and there published. 
It throws light on traits of his character, 
which in after-life have been somewhat 
overlooked, in consequence of the habitual 
circumspection and prudence which were 
forced upon him by circumstances, during 
his revolutionary career. This dangerous 
errand was undertaken by Washington 
through an unsettled wilderness, infested 
by savages, at a season of the year when 
the huntsman in his log cabin shrinks 
from the storm; and this not by a pen- 
niless adventurer, taking desperate risks 
for promotion and bread; but by a young 
man allied by blood and connected by 
friendship with the most influential fami- 
lies in the colony, possessed of property 



66 THE LIFE OF 

in his own rights with large presump- 
tive expectations. In this his first official 
service, undertaken under these circum- 
stances, he displayed the courage, the 
presence of mind, the fortitude, the en- 
durance, the humanity (on a small scale 
indeed, but at the risk of his life, in pre- 
serving that of the treacherous savage), 
which, throughout his career, never failed 
to mark his conduct. 

Although war was not formally declared 
between France and England till May, 
1756, hostilities broke out the following 
year (1754) along the frontier of the 
Anglo-American colonies. Preparations, of 
which the promise was greater than the 
reality, were made by the provincial as- 
semblies and governors. The Ohio Com- 
pany commenced a fort at the confluence 
of the Monongahela and the Alleghany, 
and a regiment, feeble in numbers, "self- 
willed and ungovernable," of which Wash- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 67 

ington was second in command^ was sent 
to their support. The movements of the 
French were more prompt and formida- 
ble; a large force of Europeans and sav- 
ages in their interest came down from 
VenangOj the servants of the Ohio Land 
Company were captured or driven from 
the work which they had commenced at 
the junction of the rivers, and Fort Du- 
quesne was erected on the spot. This 
was the first blow struck in the great 
Seven Years' "War; and it is a memorable 
incident in the life of Washington, then 
but twenty-two years of age, and acci- 
dentally in command of a trifling force 
in the unsettled region beyond the Alle- 
ghanies, that it devolved on him to re- 
pel it. 

He immediately sent despatches to the 
neighboring governors requesting aid; but 
without waiting for the greatly needed 
reinforcements, pushed on through the 



68 THE LIFE OF 

wilderness to the defence of the frontier. 
Keceiving intelHgence from the friendly 
Indians that a party of the enemy was 
lurking in the woods, Washington, igno- 
rant of their strength and in order to be 
prepared for an emergency, threw np a 
slight work at a place called the " Great 
/ Meadows," and which he described as "a 
charming field for an encounter." Hav- 
ing here received more particular infor- 
mation from Captain Gist and the friendly 
Indians of the whereabout of the enemy, 
he came upon them by surprise, after a 
forced march by night, with a company 
of picked men. In the conflict that en- 
sued, ten of the French, including their 
leader Jumonville, were killed, and twenty- 
one made prisoners. 

By the death of Colonel Fry at Will's 
Creek, on the way to join the little 
army, Washington became its Commander- 
in-chief Reinforcements were put in mo- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 69 

tion; but none arrived^ with the exception 
of an independent company from South 
Carohna, about a hundred strong, who 
reached the Great Meadows under Cap- 
tain Mackay. The main body of the 
French at Fort Duquesne, with their 
Indian aUies, were beheved greatly to 
outnumber the Anglo-Americans. Aware 
that as soon as the fate of Jumonville 
should become known to the French 
commandant a formidable force would be 
sent against him, Washington strength- 
ened his position at the Great Meadows, 
by an intrenchment and paHsade, and 
called the work "Fort Necessity." Bur- 
dened by the Indians, who crowded his 
camp with their families, and harassed 
by the claims of precedence on the part 
of Captain Mackay, he made an advance 
movement, by a very laborious march, 
with a large portion of his force, to the 
Monongahela. So difficult was the coun- 



70 THE LIFE OF 

try for artillery, that ten days were re- 
quired for a distance of thirteen miles. 
Arrived at Gist's Settlement, he received 
intelligence from deserters and Indians, 
that Fort Duquesne had been strongly 
reinforced by troops from Canada, and 
savages under the French influence. Ap- 
prehending an attack, he ordered up Cap- 
tain Mackay, who had been left with the 
reserve at the Great Meadows, to his 
support, who promptly obeyed the sum- 
mons. It was decided, however, by a 
council of war, that it would be unsafe 
to risk a battle in the open field, and a 
retreat to Fort Necessity was determined 
on. This was effected with difficulty in 
two days; and as the troops from fatigue 
and want of provisions were unable to 
pursue the march, it was concluded to 
make a stand, and await the enemy 
within their intrenchments. 

The fort was soon invested by the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 71 

French and Indians, who were able on 
one point to command the interior of 
the work. A severe action commenced 
on the 3d of July, and was prolonged 
till late in the evening. A capitulation 
was then proposed by the French com- 
mander and accepted by Washington. It 
was drawn up in a drenching rain at 
night, after a hard-fought day, in the 
French language, and signed by Wash- 
ington, not knowing that through the 
fraud or ignorance of his interpreter. 
Van Braam, the death of Jumonville was 
called, in the act of capitulation, an " as- 
sassination," — a circumstance which was 
made a futile subject of reproach to 
Washington in France at the time, and 
has been occasionally revived since. The 
following day, the Fourth of July, he 
led out his little force from the stockade, 
and conducted them in safety through 
ill-restrained bands of savages to Fort 
Cumberland. 



72 THE LIFE OF 

The following year serious efforts were 
made, both by France and England, to 
strengthen themselves on the banks of 
the Ohio. Two regiments were sent from 
EnQ:land, under the brave but self-suflfi- 
cient, obstinate, and unfortunate Brad- 
dock. New orders came with them rela- 
tive to precedence, which disgusted the 
provincial officers. Washington threw up 
his commission, but, strongly attached to 
the profession of arms, he gladly accept- 
ed an invitation from General Braddock, 
to join his military family as a volunteer. 
Great delays attended the collecting of 
supplies and forwarding of troops. Wash- 
ington fell dangerously ill, and w^as of 
necessity left behind, determined however 
to rejoin the army at the first moment 
of convalescence. The General, inexperi- 
enced in the warfare of the wilderness, 
neglected the measures necessary to con- 
ciliate the Indians and the precautions 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 73 

requisite to prevent surprise. Washington 
arrived at camp but the day before the 
catastrophe. He was accustomed in after- 
life to describe the appearance of the 
army, as they crossed the Monongahela 
on the 9th of July, and moved forward 
in confident expectation of reducing Fort 
Duquesne the following day, as the most 
magnificent spectacle he had ever beheld. 
A few hours only passed, before they fell 
into an ambuscade ; the forest rang with 
the war-whoop of . the Indians ; the ad- 
vance under Colonel Gage (afterwards 
the last royal governor of Massachusetts) 
was driven back on the main body, which 
was thereby thrown into confusion ; ofii- 
cers and men dropped on every side, 
under the murderous fire of the enemy, 
concealed in the woody ravines right and 
left; and at length the whole force, panic- 
struck and disorganized, after a terrific 
and deadly struggle of three hours, in 



74 THE LIFE OF 

which the loss of the enemy was trifling, 
suffered a total defeat. "They ran before 
the French and Indians/' says Washing- 
ton, " like sheep before dogs." Of four- 
teen hundred and sixty in Braddock's 
army, ofiicers and privates, four hundred 
and fifty-six were killed outright, and 
four hundred and twenty-one were wound- 
ed; a greater proportion of killed and 
wounded than is reported in any of the 
celebrated actions of the present day. 
The General himself was mortally wound- 
ed, and brought off with difficulty from 
the field. 

Washington acted as the General's aid 
throughout the engagement; and after the 
other aids, Orme and Morris, were dis- 
abled, the perilous duty devolved exclu- 
sively on him. It Avas performed by him, 
according to his brother officer- Orme, who 
witnessed his conduct, "with the greatest 
courage and resolution." " By the all- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 75 

powerful dispensations of Providence," he 
writes to his brother, "I have been pro- 
tected beyond all human probability or 
expectation • for I had four bullets through 
my coat, and two horses shot under me j 
yet I escaped unhurt, though death was 
levelling my companions on every side." 
His friend and physician. Dr. Craik, said, 
" I expected every moment to see him 
fall." A very curious anecdote has also 
been preserved, on the authority of Dr. 
Craik, who relates that when Washington, 
fifteen years later, made a journey to 
the Great Kenhawa, he was approached 
by the chief of a band of Indians, who 
said that he had come a long distance 
to see Washington, at whom he had 
aimed his rifle many times in the battle 
of the Monongahela, but without effect. 
— A seal of Washington with his initials, 
probably shot away from his person, was 
found, after a lapse of eighty years, on 



76 THE LIFE OF 

the field of battle, and is now in the pos- 
session of a member of the family. — So 
prevalent was the impression of his al- 
most miraculous escape from the perils 
of this disastrous day, that President 
Daveis of New Jersey College, but at 
that time a clergyman in Virginia, in a 
sermon preached in the month of August 
following, before a company of volunteers, 
after commending the patriotic ardor which 
had been manifested in the colony, added, 
"As a remarkable instance of this, I may 
point out to the public that heroic youth, 
Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but 
hope Providence has hitherto preserved 
in so signal a manner, for some important 
service to his country." 

There is certainly something extraor- 
dinary in the brilliant reputation with 
which Washington, a young officer hold- 
ing no higher position in the army than 
that of a volunteer aid to its unfortunate 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 77 

chief^ returned from this disastrous cam- 
paign. His preservation^ as we have just 
seen, was ascribed to nothing less than 
Providential interposition. The exposed 
state of the frontier, thrown open to the 
enemy, required immediate measures of 
protection. A provincial force of two 
thousand men was immediately voted by 
the Assembly, and though the govern- 
or was supposed to favor another can- 
didate, the command was given by him 
to Washington. He received this ap- 
pointment in four weeks after his return 
from the battle of the Monongahela. He 
immediately established his head-quarters 
at Winchester, then one of the most ad- 
vanced settlements, and from that point 
superintended the operations of the Vir- 
ginia frontier, for the rest of the war. 
These, with the exception to be presently 
mentioned, were of a defensive character. 
No important expeditions were attempt- 



78 THE LIFE OF 

ed; no great battles fought; but a line 
of feeble settlements^ extending for sev- 
eral hundred miles, was to be protected 
from roving bands of savages, counte- 
nanced by the French commandant, em- 
boldened by the events of 1755, and 
stimulated to plunder and bloodshed by 
outcasts from the colonies. 

The task of the youthful Commander- 
in-chief — responsible for the peace of 
the frontier, but with very inadequate 
means at his command — was arduous 
in the extreme. A reluctant and undis- 
ciplined militia was to be retained in the 
ranks by personal influence, — without 
pay, without clothes, and very imper- 
fectly armed. Contradictory and imprac- 
ticable orders were continually received 
from Governor Dinwiddle, who was wholly 
unskilled in military matters, but obsti- 
nately insisted on directing everything. 
Greedy and dishonest contractors played 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 79 

their ancient game of fraud. The arro- 
gant pretensions of a subaltern officer, 
bearing a royal commission, kept Fort 
Cumberland in an unsettled state, and 
compelled Colonel Washington in mid- 
winter to go to Boston for a solution 
of the difficulty by Governor Shirley, 
then the Commander-in-chief of the royal 
forces on the continent. Wholesale deser- 
tions on the approach of danger weak- 
ened his little force ; and the intrigues 
of rivals aspiring to his place, and seek- 
ing to gain it by traducing his character, 
outraged his feelings. In his official cor- 
respondence for 1756 and 1757, all these 
sources of embarrassment and annoyance 
are set forth; and we are struck with 
the similarity of the state of things then 
existing, with that to which we shall 
presently have occasion to advert in the 
Eevolutionary War. While nothing can 
be conceived more harassing, it must be 



80 THE LIFE OF 

admitted that it formed the best imagin- 
able school of preparation, for the more 
momentous scenes in which he was here- 
after to act a leading part. It was not, 
however, unattended with personal dan- 
ger. The fatigues and anxieties which 
he underwent, again brought on a severe 
illness, with which he suffered for four 
months at the close of 1757 and the be- 
ginning of 1758. 

The campaign of 1758 was devoted 
to an important military expedition from 
Pennsylvania and Virginia against Fort 
Duquesne, in which Washington, as com- 
mander of the Virginia contingent, took 
a leading part. The whole force destined 
for the expedition was placed under the 
command of General Forbes; and in con- 
sequence of his illness at Philadelphia, 
the loss of time in opening a new road 
into the wilderness (contrary to the ad- 
vice of Washington), and the usual tar- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 81 

diness of military operations in colonies 
remote from the seat of power, it was 
late in the autumn before the army took 
the field. Washington, at his earnest so- 
licitation, led the advance to scour the 
forest and open the roads. It was, how- 
ever, far in November before they reached 
the neighborhood of Fort Duquesne ; and 
the commander, after a serious check, was 
on the point of abandoning the enterprise 
for that year. The report brought by 
deserters of the weakness of the garri- 
son, determined him, at the last moment, 
to make the advance ; and on the 25th 
of November, 1758, he arrived at the 
fort, and found that it had been aban- 
doned and burned by the enemy. The 
English and provincials erected a tem- 
porary work on the spot, to which, in 
honor of the great minister, who had 
infused his spirit into the conduct of the 
war, they gave the name of Fort Pitt, 



82 THE LIFE OF 

still preserved in that of Pittsburg. The 
power of France was thus finally sub- 
yertecl on the Ohio, and the Anglo-Saxon 
race forever established on " the beautiful 
River." The fall of Quebec the following 
year, and the provisions of the treaty of 
1763, extinguished the French dominion 
in North America. 



GEOKGE WASHINGTON. 83 



CHAPTER IV. 

Retirement from the Army — Marriage — Election to the 
House of Burgesses and Character as a Member — His 
Occupations as a Planter, and business Habits — Visits 
the unsettled Parts of the State — Commencement of 
the Controversy with the Mother-Country — Mistaken 
Impression that Washington was ever lukewarm in the 
American Cause — Proofs of the Contrary — His early 
Career admirably calculated to fit him for the great Work 
of his life. 

The health of Washington, as we have 
seen, had suffered severely in the prog- 
ress of the war. He had made re- 
peated attempts to obtain a commission 
in the royal army; but, although pos- 
sessing in the highest degree as a mil- 
itary man the confidence of Governor 
Dinwiddle, General Braddock, and his suc- 
cessors, those attempts were unsuccessful. 
Commissions were monopolized by younger 



84 THE LIFE OF 

sons and the favorites of power at home. 
Thus was the wish of Washington to 
enter the royal service baffled a second 
time. By what narrow chances the fate 
of empires is determined! Having no 
prospect of advancement in his favorite 
profession, and having, in the fall of Fort 
Duquesne, seen the great object of the 
contest obtained, as far as Virginia, Mary- 
land, and Pennsylvania were concerned, 
he determined to retire from public life, 
and devote himself to the care of his 
property, which had suffered by neglect, 
fund the duties of a private citizen./ 

Having in the course of the preceding 
year paid his addresses successfully to 
Mrs. Martha Custis, the widow of Colonel 
John Custis, of Virginia, he was married 
to that lady on the 6th of January, 1759. 
There is a constant tradition that three 
years before he had been a suitor to 
Mary Phillipse, the sister-in-law of Colonel 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 85 

Beverley Robinson, of New York, whose 
guest he was on his journey to and from 
the Eastern Colonies in 1756. On this 
occasion, Colonel Morris, his associate in 
arms at Braddock's defeat, and his com- 
panion in the excursion to the East, hav- 
ing lingered in New York after the re- 
turn of Washington to the army, proved 
a successful rival, and became the husband 
of the lady. She was the heiress of a 
large landed property in the state of 
New York, and her family adhered to 
the royal side in the Revolution. Thjs 
lady is said to have died in England at 
the age of ninety-four, — having survived 
Washington about twenty-five years. One 
cannot but bestow a passing thought on 
the question, what might have been the 
effect on the march of events, if Wash- 
ington, at the age of twenty-four, and be- 
fore the controversies between the mother- 
country and the colonies had commenced, 



86 THE LIFE OF 

had formed a matrimonial alliance with 
a family of wealth and influence in New 
York, which adhered to the royal cause, 
and left America as loyalists when the 
war broke out. It is a somewhat curious 
fact, that Washington's head-quarters, dur- 
ing a part of the campaign of 1776, were 
established in the stately mansion of the 
Morrises, on Harlem Kiver * 

His connection with Mrs. Washington 
was in all respects fortunate. She was 
the mother of two children by her for- 
mer marriage; she brought him a large 
accession of fortune for those days ; and 
by her solid virtues, cheerful disposition, 
and simple and amiable manners, relieved 
him from the cares of domestic life, 
strengthened the attachment of his friends, 
and adorned the high public stations to 
which he was successively called. He 
remained childless ; but he adopted her 

*Lossing's Mount Vernon and its Associations, p. 46. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 87 

children as his own, and superintended 
their education and managed their for- 
tunes with parental care. The daughter 
died in early life; the son became an Aid 
to "Washington during the Revolutionary 
War, but died in 1781, leaving three 
daughters and a son. The youngest 
daughter, who afterwards married Law- 
rence Lewis, Esq., and the son, George 
W. Parke Custis, who died at Arlington, 
in Virginia, in the year 1857, were adopt- 
ed by Washington and brought up at 
Mount Vernon. 

Washington, though absent with the 
army, had been elected to the Virginia 
House of Burgesses in 1757. After his 
retirement from the service, he took 
his seat, and continued a member of 
that body under repeated reelections, till 
the commencement of the Revolutionary 
War. He was remarkably diligent and 
punctual in the performance of his du- 



88 THE LIFE OF 

ties as a legislator and a representative, 
but seldom took part in debate properly 
so called, and never made a long speech. 
In this respect he resembles two others 
of the foremost leaders of the American 
Revolution, Franklin and Jefferson, men 
who in general intellectual culture and 
political training had the advantage of 
Washington, but who like him had never 
formed themselves to the habit of de- 
bate. His recommendation to a nephew, 
on being chosen a member of the House 
of Burgesses, may be taken as the indi- 
cation of his own rule of conduct : " If 
you have a mind to command the atten- 
tion of the House, the only advice I will 
offer is to speak seldom but on impor- 
tant subjects, except such as particularly 
relate to your constituents; and in the 
former case make yourself perfectly mas- 
ter of the subject. Never exceed a de- 
cent warmth, and submit your sentiments 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 89 

with diffidence. A dictatorial style^ though 
it may carry conviction^ is always ac- 
companied with disgust." \ 

Such was the habit of Washington 
himself; it was the only course consist- 
ent with his natural disposition and pe- ^/ 
culiar balance of mental qualities. There 
is no doubt that in this^ as in some other 
respects, the possession of more brilliant 
qualities would have marred the sym- 
metry of his character and lessened his 
influence. Shining powers of debate, for 
instance, had he possessed them, would, 
by the necessity of that talent, have fixed 
him as a partisan, and consequently have 
impaired that influence through which 
he controlled all parties. As it was, no 
one possessed greater ascendency in all 
deliberative bodies of which he was a 
member. On the return to Virginia of 
the delegates to the first Continental 
Congress at Philadelphia, Patrick Henry, 



-\y 



90 THE LIFE OF 

himself generally regarded as the first of 
American orators, was asked who was 
the greatest man in the assembly. His 
reply was, ^^If you speak of eloquence, 
Mr. Rutledge of Soiith Carolina is by far 
the greatest orator ; but if you speak of 
solid information and sound judgment, 
Colonel Washington is unquestionably the 
greatest man on the floor." 

Shortly after his marriage, Washington 
established his permanent home at Mount 
Yernon, and gave himself up to the usual 
routine of plantation life, as pursued in 
those days. Tobacco was then the great 
staple product of this part of Virginia, 
and Washington w^as in the habit of 
shipping his crop directly to London, to 
Liverpool, and to Bristol. All supplies 
of manufactures for clothing, implements 
of husbandry, and matters of taste and 
luxury were derived by direct importa- 
tion from England, usually twice a year. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 91 

All the business connected with the cul- 
tivation of his estates and the exportation 
of his crops, on the one hand, and the 
orders for his return supplies, on the other, 
were superintended by him in person. His 
letters were written and copied, and his 
account-books kept by himself in mer- 
cantile order, and with extreme neat- 
ness and precision. In the com^se of 
these transactions, the minutest details 
of domestic economy necessarily received 
his attention, down to the most trifling 
article of clothing for the children. While 
he gave his hours of labor to these hum- 
ble occupations, he found a much cher- 
ished relaxation in the sports of the 
field. He was a bold rider, and followed 
the fox-hounds, sometimes two or three 
times a week, with untiring spirit. It 
is related that at the battle of Princeton, 
(where, as he told the painter Trumbull, 
he was in greater danger than ever be- 



92 THE LIFE OF 

fore in the course of his hfe^ being at 
one time between the fire of both ar- 
mies,) perceiving a regiment of the en- 
emy in full retreat down the hill; he 
leaped his favorite roan hunter over a 
stone-wall which crowned the summit^ 
gave the view halloo^ and said to his 
aids, " A perfect fox-chase ! " 

In the year 1770, Washington revisited 
the scenes of his youthful adventure and 
service. Accompanied by Dr. Craik, who 
shared with him the hazards of Brad- 
dock's field, and a party of friends and 
servants, he went on horseback to Pitts- 
burg, then in its infancy, and descend- 
ed the Ohio Eiver from that place to 
the mouth of the Great Kenhawa in 
Virginia. — A net of railroads now covers 
the region through which they rode, and 
hundreds of steamers ply the waters of 
the Ohio. — Washington and his party 
floated down the river in an open boat, 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 93 

exposed to the savages on the right bank, 
on which at that time there were no 
white settlements, and obhged to land at 
night and encamp in the woods. Hav- 
ing reached the Kenhawa, they ascended 
that stream, and made valuable selections 
of fertile lands. It was on this occasion/ 
that the interview with the Indian chief ^ ''" 
took place, which has been already de- 
scribed. One object of this excursion 
was to select and mark out the lands, 
granted by the colonial government, as 
a bounty to the soldiers who had served 
in the war. 

The contest of legislation had been for 
some years in progress, which preluded 
the great scene of Washington's services 
and fame, — the American Kevolution. 
With a view to American revenue, the 
Stamp Act was passed. It was repealed, 
but with the assertion of a right to tax 
America; and this theory, carried out in 



94 THE LIFE OF 

practice by the enactment of the duties 
on tea, glass, and painters' colors, of which 
the first-named was persistently retained 
when the others were rescinded, brought 
on the war. These ill-advised measures, 
which we have grouped in a sentence, 
were spread over eight years of irritation, 
disaffection, and ripening revolt. Wash- 
ington, by nature the most loyal of men 
to order and law, whose rule of social 
hfe was obedience to rightful authority, 
was from the first firmly on the Ameri- 
can side ', not courting, not contemplating 
even, till the eve of the explosion, a forci- 
ble resistance to the mother-country, but 
not recoiling from it, when forced upon 
the colonies as the inevitable result of 
their principles. An impression has ex- 
isted in some quarters on the other side 
of the Atlantic, that Washington originally 
leaned to the royalist side in the great 
conflict of opinion and feeling that pre- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 95 

ceded the Eevolutionary War. His cor- 
respondence, not less than his pubhc 
course as a member of the House of 
Burgesses, shows this impression to be 
utterly groundless. It may have had its 
origin in the fact, that, not being a pub- 
lic speaker or writer, he was less fre- 
quently and prominently brought before 
the public as an open champion of the 
cause, than some of the other leaders of 
the Ee volution. The spurious letters bear- 
ing his name, and which were industri- 
ously published in a volume at London 
during the war, in order to shake the 
faith of his countrymen in his integrity, 
contributed no doubt to strengthen this 
impression. It is matter of surprise that 
the title of a fabrication of this kind, 
which one is pleased to think would, at 
this time of day, be deemed unworthy 
a place among the instruments of honor- 
able warfare, should be admitted as a 



96 THE LIFE OF 

genuine publication into respectable liter- 
ary manuals/'- 

Washington was the near neighbor and 
confidential friend of George Mason, who 
drew the plan of the association not to 
import British manufactures in 1774; and 
in the absence of Mason from the House 
of BurgesseSj and as chairman of the 
meeting at which the resolves were 
adopted, he presented it to the assembly. 
There is not the slightest trace of dis- 
sent on his part from any of the meas- 
ures of the popular leaders, except that 
he deemed it wrong to forbid the export 
of American produce to England, as this 
was the only fund out of which the colo- 
nies were able to pay their debts to the 
British manufacturer. His name is found 
in conjunction with those of the most 
constant patriots, in the anxious years 
that preceded the appeal to arms; and 

* Lowndes's Bibliographers' Manual. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 97 

when the House of Burgesses was dis- 
solved by the royal governor in the sum- 
mer of 1774, Washington was a member 
of the convention chosen to take its place, 
and was, with five associates, elected a 
delegate to the first Continental Congress, 
which met in Philadelphia in the autumn 
of that year. Of his position in that as- 
sembly, the estimate formed by Patrick 
Henry, one of the most fervid of patriots, 
has already been given. A letter written 
by him from Philadelphia to one of his 
former companions in arms, Captain. Mac- 
kenzie, then stationed at Boston, exhibits 
the state of Washington's mind at this 
period, as of that of the class of men 
whom he represented. The following ex- 
tract will suffice : " I think I can an- 
nounce it as a fact, that it is not the 
wish nor the interest of the government 
of Massachusetts, or any other govern- 
ment upon this continent, separately or 



98 THE LIFE OF 

collectively, to set up for independence; 
but this you may rely upon, that none 
of them will ever submit to the loss 
of those valuable rights and privileges, 
which are essential to the inhabitant^ of 
every free State, and without which life, 
hberty, and property are rendered totally 
insecure." The object of holding the con- 
gress, — as expressed in the resolution of 
the convention of delegates in Virginia, 
by which Washington and his associates 
were elected, — was declared to be, " to 
consider the most proper and effectual 
manner of so operating upon the com- 
mercial connection of the colonies with 
the mother-country, as to procure re- 
dress for the much injured province 
of Massachusetts Bay, to secure British 
America from the ravage and ruin of 
arbitrary taxes, and speedily to procure 
the return of that harmony and union, 
so beneficent to the whole empire, and 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 99 

SO ardently desired by all British Amer- 
ica." 

The Congress met at Philadelphia on 
the 5th of September. Washington's let- 
ter to Captain Mackenzie was written on 
the 9th of October, and the petition to 
the King, which closes the journal of the 
session, terminates with the following loy- 
al aspirations : " That your Majesty may 
enjoy every felicity, through a long and 
glorious reign, over loyal and happy sub- 
jects, and that your descendants may 
inherit your prosperity and your domin- 
ions, till time shall be no more, is, and 
always will be, our sincere and fervent 
prayer ! " 

Before we enter uj)on a brief survey 
of the career of Washington, as the great 
military leader of the American Ee volu- 
tion, we cannot but reflect upon the 
adaptation of the first portion of his life, 
as a school of preparation for the sequel. 



100 THE LIFE OF 

His great vocation may be considered as 
commencing with the Eevolutionary War. 
He was the providentially appointed lead- 
er of that great contest, whose results, 
direct and remote, are of equal moment 
to the Old World and the New. We can 
scarcely imagine a course of life better 
fitted to train him for his arduous work 
than that which he led from the age of 
sixteen, when he entered the wilderness 
as a surveyor of unsettled lands, to his 
retirement from the army eleven years 
afterwards. In this period he had re- 
ceived a thorough athletic training, and 
had studied the art of war, not on the 
blackboard at military schools, but in act- 
ual service, and that of the most perilous 
and trying kind, under rigid disciplinari- 
ans of the best school of that day; for 
Braddock had been selected for the com- 
mand, as an experienced and thoroughly 
accomplished of&cer. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 101 

But military command was but one part 
of the career which awaited Washing- 
ton. Almost all the duties of government 
centred in his hands, under the ineffi- 
cient administration of the old congress. 
A merely military education would have 
furnished no adequate preparation for the 
duties to be performed by him. It was 
accordingly a most auspicious circum- 
stance that from the year 1759 to the 
Revolution he passed fifteen years as a 
member of the House of Burgesses, where 
he acquired a familiar knowledge of civil 
affairs and of politics. The ordinary leg- 
islation of a leading colonial government, 
like that of Virginia, was no mean school 
of political experience; and the state of 
affairs at the time was such as to ex- 
pand and elevate the minds of men. 
Everything was inspired with an un- 
consciously developed, but not the less 
stirring revolutionary energy ; and many 



102 THE LIFE OF 

of his associates were men of large views 
and strenuous character. 

While his public duties, civil and mili- 
tary, prepared him, in this way, for the 
positions he was to fill in war and in 
peace, the fifteen years which he passed 
in the personal management of a large 
landed estate, and the care of an ample 
fortune, furnished abundant occasion for 
the formation of the economical side of 
his character, and gave a thoroughness 
to his administrative habits, which has 
not been witnessed in the career of 
many very eminent public men in Europe 
or America. It will not be easy to find 
another instance of a great military and 
political leader, who, to the same degree, 
has been equal to the formation and ex- 
ecution of the boldest plans, and to the 
control of the most perplexed combina- 
tions of afiairs, and yet not above the 
most ordinary details of business, nor 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 103 

negligent of minute economies. But it 
was precisely this union of seemingly in- 
consistent qualities of mind and character^ 
which was most needed from the time 
he took command of the Revolutionary 
Army to the close of his Presidential ser- 
vice. 



104 THE LIFE OF 



CHAPTER V. 

Commencement of the War — Lexington and Concord — ■ 
The Royal Army blockaded in Boston — Washington 
chosen Commander-in-Chief by the Continental Con- 
gress — Destitute Condition of the Army — Dorchester 
Heights fortified in the Spring of 1776 — Boston evac- 
uated by the Royal Forces — The War transferred to 
New York — Disastrous Battle of Long Island — Wash- 
ington Retreats through New Jersey to Philadelphia — 
Recrosses the Delaware and surprises the Hessians at 
Trenton — Gains the Battle of Princeton and retrieves 
the Fortune of the Campaign. 

To do full justice to the character of 
Washingtoiij as the great leader of the 
American Eevolution^ would require a de- 
tailed history of the war, by which the 
Independence of the United States was 
established, and, of consequence, greatly 
exceed the limits of this work. A very 
brief sketch of those events in which he 
was directly concerned, is all that can be 
attempted. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 105 

It may first be observed, that it would 
be unjust to Washington to place his 
military reputation on ordinary strategi- 
cal grounds. He had an army to call 
into being, as well as to conduct ; 
the entire materiel of war to create ; 
supplies to raise, without credit or the 
power of taxation, from a small and scat- 
tered population, subject to separate state 
governments, and not yet organized un- 
der one efficient central authority. At 
no period of the war was he supported 
by a strong civil power, for Congress 
acted only by recommendations addressed 
to the states ; he was never furnished 
with a well-supplied military chest, (there 
was a moment in the disastrous campaign 
of 1776, when he wrote to Mr. Morris 
at Philadelphia, that a hundred pounds 
would be of great service to him,) and 
he never was at the head of what, at 
the present day, would be called an effi- 



106 THE LIFE OF 

cient force; unless we except the allied 
American and French army at Yorktown, 
and there he achieved a brilliant success. 
It would of course be unreasonable, un- 
der these circumstances, to compare his 
military operations with those of the 
great captains of Europe, who, in the 
service of rich and powerful governments, 
and at the head of immense bodies of 
veteran troops, with the aid of expe- 
rienced subalterns in every rank of the 
army, and with a boundless supply of 
all the maUnel of war, gain the victories 
which fill the pages of history and earn 
for themselves immortal fame. 

The actual commencement of hostilities 
in the war of the American Eevolution 
might be said to be accidental. A series 
of ill-judged and oppressive measures on 
the part of the British Parliament, aimed 
principally at the province of Massachu- 
setts Bay (as it was then called), had pro- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 107 

duced a great degree of irritation tliere^ 
in which the other colonies cordially sym- 
pathized. Military preparations had been 
going on for a year or two in Massachu- 
setts, and small stores of powder and 
arms had been collected. A few field- 
pieces had been procured at Concord, a 
village lying about eighteen miles west 
of Boston ; and this fact coming to the 
knowledge of General Gage, the royal 
governor and commander-in-chief in Bos- 
ton, he despatched a considerable force 
into the country, on the night of the 
18th of April, 1775, with the twofold 
object of destroying the provincial stores, 
and, as was supposed, of arresting Han- 
cock and Adams, who had been pro- 
scribed by name, and who were then at 
Lexington, a village situated on the road 
to Concord. This rash movement brought 
on a collision at Lexington and Concord 
on the morning of the 19th, between the 



108 THE LIFE OF 

royal force and the militia of those 
places and others on the line of march 
and in the vicinity; blood was shed on 
both sides ; the alarm spread with great 
rapidity through the neighboring towns; 
and the royal force was saved from an- 
nihilation, only by a disorderly and tu- 
multuous retreat to Boston. Here they 
were immediately blockaded by fifteen or 
twenty thousand men of the militia of 
Massachusetts and the other New Eng- 
land colonies, who, as the news of 
the commencement of hostilities spread 
through the country, had poured in from 
every side. As Massachusetts was the 
seat of the war, the control of this force 
and the conduct of the struggle, thus 
improvised, devolved, by the necessity of 
the case, and by tacit understanding, upon 
the Provincial Congress (as it was called) 
of that colony, — an extra-constitutional 
body called into existence by the exi- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 109 

gency of the timeSj and assimilated as 
nearly as possible to the Assembly organ- 
ized mider the Colonial Charter. Major- 
General Ward, of Massachusetts, thus be- 
came, by acquiescence, the commander- 
in-chief of the forces hastily assembled 
around Boston. The second session of 
the Continental Congress commenced at 
Philadelphia about three weeks after the 
events at Lexington and Concord, and 
measures were immediately adopted for 
recognizing the forces already concen- 
trated round Boston, as a Continental 
Army, and for raising additional troojDS 
in the other states. 

Early in June, 1775, the question of 
the appointment of a commander-in-chief 
came up. Colonel Washington, as has 
been seen, was one of the delegates from 
Virginia to the Continental Congress. His 
distinguished services in the Seven Years' 
War were still freshly remembered ; and 



110 THE LIFE OF 

he had acquired in the intervening pe- 
riod, in the Virginia Assembly, a substan- 
tial reputation for prudence, energy, and 
practical wisdom. Combined with this 
reputation, his large fortune, his attrac- 
tive and imposing personal appearance 
and manners, and general weight of char- 
acter, gave him influence ; and motives of 
patriotic expediency inclined the dele- 
gates from Massachusetts, and especially 
their ardent and eloquent leader, John 
Adams, afterwards the- second President 
of the United States, to waive whatever 
claim that colony might be supposed to 
possess, and to give their support to the 
accomplished Virginia colonel, as Com- 
mander-in-chief of the Continental Armies. 
Washington was unanimously elected ; and 
in accepting the appointment, which he 
did in person in his place in Congress, 
he modestly avowed his ^^consciousness 
that his abilities and military experience 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. Ill 

might not be equal to the extensive and 
important trust;" and added, "lest some 
unlucky event should happen unfavor- 
able to my reputation, I beg it may be 
remembered by every gentleman in the 
room, that I this day declare, with the 
utmost sincerity, that I do not think my- 
self equal to the command I am honored 
with." The compensation of the Com- 
mander-in-chief having, before the elec- 
tion, been fixed at ^Ye hundred dollars 
per month, he declined to accept any 
salary; but stated that he should keep 
an exact account of his expenses, not 
doubting that these would be reimbursed 
to him by Congress. This account is in 
existence, wholly made out in Washing- 
ton's handwriting. It has been litho- 
graphed in fac-simile, and is a document 
of great curiosity and interest. Washing- 
ton's commission passed Congress on the 
17th of June, 1775, the day on which 



112 THE LIFE OF 

the memorable battle of Bunker Hill was 
fought. The news of that battle reached 
hmi on his way to join the army before 
Boston ; and on learning that the militia 
had sustained themselves gallantly in a 
conflict with regular troops, he declared 
that the cause of America was safe. 

He arrived in Cambridge, Massachu- 
setts, on the 2d of July, and on the fol- 
lowing day presented himself at the head 
of the army. His head-quarters remained 
at Cambridge,* till the evacuation of Bos- 
ton by the royal forces on the 17th of 
March, 1776. The position of affairs was 
one of vast responsibility and peril. The 
country at large was highly excited, and 
expected that a bold stroke would be 
struck and decisive successes obtained. 
But the army was without organization 

* Washington's head-quarters at Cambridge were estab- 
lished in the house now owned and occupied by Mr. Long- 
fellow; then belonging to the loyalist famDy of Vassal. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 113 

and discipline; the troops unused to 
obey, the officers for the most part un- 
accustomed, some of them incompetent, 
to command. A few of them only had 
had a limited experience in the Seven 
Years' War. Most of the men had rushed 
to the field on the first alarm of hostil- 
ities, without any enlistment; and when 
they were enlisted, it was only till the 
end of the year. There was no military 
chest; scarce anything that could be 
called a commissariat. The artillery con- 
sisted of a few old field-pieces of various 
sizes, served with a very few exceptions 
by persons wholly untrained in gunnery. 
There was no seige train, and an almost 
total want of every description of ord- 
nance stores. Barrels of sand, represented 
as powder, were from time to time brought 
into the camp, to prevent the American 
army itself from being aware of its defi- 
ciency in that respect. In the autumn 



114 THE LIFE OF 

of 1775, an alarm of small-pox was 
brought from Boston, and the troops 
were subjected to inoculation. There was 
no efficient power, either in the Provin- 
cial Assembly or the Congress at Phila- 
delphia, by which these wants could be 
supplied and these evils remedied. Such 
were the circumstances under which Gen- 
eral Washington took the field, at the 
head of a force greatly superior in num- 
bers to the royal army, but in all other 
respects a very unequal match. Mean- 
time the British were undisputed masters 
of the approaches to Boston by water. 

Washington's letters disclose extreme 
impatience under the inaction to which 
he was condemned; but the gravest diffi- 
culties attended the expulsion of the 
royal forces from Boston. It could only 
be effected by the bombardment and as- 
sault of that place ; an attempt which 
must in any event have been destruc- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 115 

tive to the large non-combatant popula- 
tioDj that had been unable to remove 
into the country, and which would have 
been of doubtful success, for the want of 
a siege train, and with troops wholly 
unused to such an undertaking. Hav- 
ing in the course of the year received 
some captured ordnance from Canada, 
and a supply of ammunition taken 
by privateers at sea, Washington was 
strongly disposed to assault the town, as 
soon as the freezing of the bay on the 
western side of the peninsula would al- 
low the troops to pass on the ice. The 
winter, however, remained open longer 
than usual, and a council of war dis- 
suaded this attempt. He then determined 
to occupy Nook's Hill, (an eminence at 
the extremity of Dorchester " Neck," as 
it was called, separated from Boston by 
a narrow arm of the harbor,) and Dor- 
chester Heights, which commanded Nook's 



116 THE LIFE OF 

Hill and the town itself. In this way the 
royal forces would be compelled to take 
the risk of a general action^ for the pur- 
pose of dislodging the Americans, or else 
to evacuate the town. The requisite prep- 
arations having been made with secrecy, 
energy, and despatch, the heights were 
covered with breastworks on the night 
of the 4th of March, 1776, as "by en- 
chantment." A partial movement, under- 
taken by the royal army to dislodge the 
Americans, was frustrated by stress of 
weather; and on the 17th of March, in 
virtue of an agreement to that effect 
with the municipal government, the town 
and harbor of Boston were evacuated by 
the British army and navy without firing 
a gun. Thus, without a battle and with- 
out the destruction of a building in Bos- 
ton, the first year of the war was brought 
to a successful and an auspicious close. 
The British army under General Howe, 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 117 

after evacuating Boston, sailed for Hali- 
fax ; but in the course of the summer a 
general concentration of the royal forces 
took place in the vicinity of New York, 
Staten Island being the head-quarters. 
There the landing of the British was 
effected, on the same day on which the 
Independence of the United States was 
declared at Philadelphia. General Howe 
was reinforced at Staten Island by the 
troops under Clinton and Cornwallis, who 
had been despatched to the South, and 
who had been repulsed in an attack 
upon Sullivan's Island, which was defend- 
ed with signal valor and success by Gen- 
eral Moultrie. A naval armament, with a 
large reinforcement of German merce- 
naries, also arrived at New York under 
Lord Howe, (the brother of the general,) 
who was clothed with full powers as a 
commissioner, and who brought unavail- 
ing overtures for pacification. These he 



118 THE LIFE OF 

addressed, at first, to "George Washington, 
Esq. ; " afterwards, with melancholy perti- 
nacity, but equal want of success, enlarg- 
ing the superscription with a thrice re- 
peated et cetera. No man could care less 
than Washington for the empty parade 
of titles, but he did not of course choose 
to acquiesce in the intentional refusal to 
recognize him in the only capacity, in 
which Lord Howe was warranted to com- 
municate with him at all. 

By the several accessions alluded to, 
the British army was swelled to between 
twenty-five and thirty thousand well-ap- 
pointed troops. The American army, in 
the aggregate, was numerically of almost 
equal size, but reduced by sickness, de- 
tachment, and absence on leave, to about 
eleven thousand men, fit for duty ; and 
those not to be compared with efficient 
veteran soldiers. It was necessary that this 
small army should be widely distributed. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 119 

A considerable force was stationed at 
Brooklyn on Long Island, and the resi- 
due at various posts and forts on New 
York Island and the North and East 
Kivers. The head-quarters were in the 
city of New York. General Greene com- 
manded on Long Island ; but this able 
officer falling ill, his place was taken by 
General Sullivan. The enemy began to 
land detachments of troops on Long Isl- 
and on the 2 2d of August, but it re- 
mained uncertain for some days where 
he would strike the main blow. On the 
25th, General Putnam was ordered with a 
strong reinforcement to Brooklyn, where 
the following day was spent by the Com- 
mander-in-chief, in the necessary arrange- 
ments for the expected battle. On the 
27th, a general action was fought, with 
greatly superior forces on the part of 
the enemy. The Americans were defeat- 
ed with heavy loss, Generals Sullivan 



120 THE LIFE OF 

and Lord Stirling being among the pris- 
oners. 

General Howe encamped for the night 
in front of the position of the Americans, 
expecting no doubt to follow up his suc- 
cess the next day by their total rout. 
He probably overrated their strength; the 
day was rainy, and no forward move- 
ment was made by the British army on 
the 28th. In the course of that day an 
activity prevailed on Staten Island, which 
was thought to threaten an attempt on 
the city ; and during the night, under 
cover of a dense fog, a masterly re- 
treat, conducted by General Washington 
in person, was commenced, and before 
morning the entire American force on 
Long Island was brought off in safety. 
The battle of Long Island was one of 
the most disastrous events of the war; 
and the undiscovered retreat of the 
troops, within hearing of the hostile sen- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 121 

tries^ one of its most brilliant achieve- 
ments. On these two eventful days Wash- 
ington was for nearly forty-eight hours in 
the saddle, during which he did not close 
his eyes. 

The greatly superior numbers of the 
royal army, and the control of the wa- 
ters on which New York stands, com- 
pelled the retreat of the Americans, suc- 
cessively from the city and island of 
New York; and at the close of October, 
Washington occupied an intrenched camp 
at White Plains, a strong position about 
midway between the Hudson and East 
Eiver. Here a pretty severe but partial 
action took place, which resulted favor- 
ably to the British. A general engage- 
ment seemed in 23rospect ; but Sir William 
Howe (lately decorated with the order 
of the Bath)* thought the position of 
Washington, who had withdrawn to high- 
er ground, too strong to be forced, and 
11 



122 THE LIFE OF 

concentrated his own troops at Harlem 
and on the Hudson^ with the evident de- 
sign of crossing into New Jersey, and 
marching on Philadelphia. To anticipate 
this movement Washington, after despatch- 
ing Heath with a detachment to hold the 
Highlands, and leaving Lee in command 
near White Plains, crossed into New Jer- 
sey with the troops belonging to the 
states west of the Hudson. Lee, in 
whose military capacity and fidelity to 
the American cause too much confidence 
was reposed, was directed to remain at 
White Plains, or to follow the Command- 
er-in-chief, as the exigencies of the service 
might require. 

Fort Washington, a strong post on the 
Hudson, commanded by Colonel Magaw, 
was immediately invested by the British, 
and the garrison, amounting to over three 
thousand men, capitulated. This was an- 
other most disastrous blow to the Amer- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 123 

ican cause. Lord Cornwallis was imme- 
diately despatched into New Jersey with 
six thousand men; and, to prevent Sir 
William Howe from marching on Phila- 
delphia with his entire army, Washington 
was compelled to retreat from river to 
river through that state. His numbers 
were much reduced by the loss of the 
garrison at Fort Washington, by the de- 
tachment of Heath to the Highlands, and 
the unpardonable tardiness of Lee in 
obeying the repeated orders of the Com- 
mander-in-chief to join the main body of 
the army. The further pernicious effects 
of his insubordination were prevented, 
after his arrival at Morristown, in New 
Jersey, by his surprise and capture, in 
the night, by a party of the enemy who 
had received a hint of his whereabout. 
This event, discreditable to himself, was 
hardly to be regretted by Washington, 
whom he was secretly plotting to under- 



124 THE LIFE OF 

mine, and whom he omitted no opportu- 
nity to disparage. The Cominander-in-chief 
crossed the Delaware River with barely 
four thousand troops. He was soon joined 
by other detachments of the army, but 
was in no condition to defend Philadel- 
phia, if Sir William Howe, at the head 
of a large and well-appointed army, 
should, as soon as the Delaware was fro- 
zen, cross the ice, and attempt the city 
by assault. 

The state and prospects of the Ameri- 
can Army and cause were at this time 
more gloomy than at any other period 
of the war. The army, feeble and poorly 
provided at best, was on the point of 
dissolution by the expiration of its term 
of enlistment. The year 1776 and the 
campaign were closing amidst universal 
despondency. Washington almost alone 
remained unshaken ; and, on one occasion, 
declared that if the enemy succeeded in 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 125 

obtaining possession of the whole of the 
Atlantic states, he would retreat behind 
the Alleghanies, and bid them defiance 
there. But it was precisely at this junc- 
ture that he struck the boldest stroke 
of the war, and, in less than two weeks, 
not only changed the entire face of af- 
fairs, and retrieved the fortunes of the 
campaign, but established his own repu- 
tation as a consummate chieftain. ^ 
A detachment of the royal army, con- 
sisting principally of the Hessian merce- 
naries, but with a squadron of British 
dragoons, had been pushed to the Dela- 
ware River, and occupied Trenton. Small- 
er bodies of royal troops were stationed 
at other points down the river ; a still 
larger force was posted at Brunswick. 
"Washington conceived the plan of cross- 
ing the Delaware, and surprising the Hes- 
sians at Trenton, and the other corps at 
Burlington and Bordentown. This was to 



126 THE LIFE OF 

be effected by dividing his own small 
force into tbree parties, which should 
pass the river above and below Trenton, 
headed respectively by himself, Cadwal- 
ader, and Ewing. On the night of the 
25th of December, when the Delaware, a 
broad and rapid stream, was filled with 
floating ice, under a driving storm alter- 
nately of snow, rain, and sleet, and with 
the weather so cold that two of his men 
froze to death by the way, his own part 
of the movement was successfully accom- 
plished. Trenton was surprised by him 
about 8 o'clock in the morning; and after 
a brief action, with nominal loss to the 
Americans, a thousand Hessians were tak- 
en prisoners, — their commander, Colonel 
Eahl, being killed. The dragoons escaped 
down the river; and, owing to the impos- 
sibility of crossing it, — the masses of drift- 
ice having become too fixed for the boats 
to pass through, — the other portions of 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 127 

the plan failed. Washington recrossed 
the Delaware in safety with his prison- 
ers, who were nearly half as numer- 
ous as his own detachment, and, after 
an interval of two or three days, returned 
with his disposable force to the left bank 
of the river to resume the offensive. 

Lord Cornwallis, who was on the eve 
of sailing for England, considering the 
campaign as closed, was detained by Sir 
William Howe, and sent in haste to 
Trenton, to arrest the progress of Wash- 
ington. The latter, who had stationed 
himself behind the Assanpink, knowing 
the great inferiority of his force, de- 
camped in the night from the bank of 
that river, and, forcing a march on Prince- 
ton, surprised a detachment of the royal 
army which was on the way to reinforce 
Cornwallis at Trenton. A sharp action 
ensued, in which Washington, as has been 
already stated, informed Colonel Trum- 



128 THE LIFE OF 

bull, who painted a picture of the scene, 
that he was in greater personal danger 
than on any other occasion in his life, 
not excepting Braddock's defeat. The 
royal force was defeated with great loss 
both in killed and prisoners. Many also 
fell on the American side -, among them 
the gallant and lamented Mercer. 

By these bold and successful opera- 
tions, the fortune of the war was com- 
pletely reversed. All thoughts of moving 
on Philadelphia were for the present 
abandoned by Sir William Howe, and he 
confined himself for the rest of the win- 
ter to the positions occupied by his 
troops at New York, Amboy, and Bruns- 
wick. General Washington went into win- 
ter-quarters at Morristown, and the au- 
thority of Congress was restored through- 
out New Jersey, except in the places in 
the actual occupation of the British troops. 
These brilliant results, achieved at the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 129 

moment of accumulated disaster and al- 
most of despair, revived the confidence 
of the country, and earned for Washing- 
ton a brilliant reputation as a strategist 
in the estunation of Europe. 



130 THE LIFE OF 



CHAPTER VI. 

Campaign of 1777 — Sir William Howe sails from Staten 
Island and ascends the Chesapeake — The Battle of 
Brandy wine adverse to the Americans — Sir W. Howe 
occupies Philadelphia — Battle of Germantown — Ca- 
pitulation of Burgoyne — Washington in Winter-Quar- 
ters at Valley Forge — The Gates and Conway Cabal 
— Forged Letters — Campaign of 1778 — The French 
Alhance — Sir W. Howe evacuates Philadelphia — Bat- 
tle of Monmouth — Lee sentenced by a Court-Martial, 
and leaves the Army — The Count d'Estaing with a 
French Fleet arrives in the American Waters — Cam- 
paign of 1779 — No general Operation of the Main 
Body — Campaign of 1780 — Arrival of the First Divis- 
ion of the French Army under Rochambeau — Trea- 
son of Arnold — Fate of Andre — Campaign of 1781 — 
Arrival of Count de Grasse with Reinforcements — Ca- 
pitulation of Cornwallls at Yorktown — Negotiations for 
Peace — Provisional Articles signed November, 1782 — 
Discontents in the American Army — The Newburg 
Address — Definitive Treaty of Peace — Washington re- 
signs his Commission to the Congress at Annapolis, 23d 
December, 1783. 

"With the opening of the campaign of 
1777, Sir WiUiam Howe, at the head of 



« 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 131 

a vastly superior force, in vain endeav- 
ored to draw Washington into a general 
engagement. Burgoyne entered Canada, 
and the American commander was for 
some time at a loss what might be Sir 
William's ulterior plan of operations. It 
soon appeared that Philadelphia was his 
object; but not deeming it safe to march 
through New Jersey with the American 
army on his flanks and rear, Sir William 
hastily embarked his troops at Staten 
Island, and went round by sea to Chesa- 
peake Bay. As soon as the news reached 
Washington that the royal fleet was seen 
at the Capes of the Delaware, he moved 
on Germantown, and thence to Chester. 

It was at this time that Lafayette w^as 
introduced to the Commander-in-chief; and 
notwithstanding the caution with which 
foreigners were necessarily received, he 
was immediately taken into the confi- 
dence of Washington, which he justly 



132 THE LIFE OF 

retained to the end of his life. Serving 
as the medium of communication between 
the two countries, and possessing influ- 
ence with both, the connection of Lafay- 
ette with the American Ee volution con- 
tributed materially to its successful issue. 
Sir William Howe ascended the Chesa- 
peake Bay, and landed his army at the 
Head of Elk. Washington met him on 
the Brandywine with inferior numbers, 
and after a severe action, September 
11th, in which Lafayette was wounded, 
the Americans were compelled to retreat. 
Notwithstanding this reverse, Washington 
succeeded, for eight or ten days, by skil- 
ful manoeuvring and avoiding a general 
action, in keeping the royal army occu- 
pied ; nor was it till the 22d of Septem- 
ber that Sir William Howe was able to 
enter Philadelphia. A considerable detach- 
ment of his forces was stationed at Ger- 
mantown. Washington, notwithstanding 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 133 

the suffering condition of his army, after 
a forced night march of seventeen miles, 
on the 4th of October, attacked the royal 
troops at Germantown, — and at first with 
decided success. The fortune of the day, 
in consequence of untoward circumstances, 
turned against him ; but the fact that he 
was able so soon to resume the offensive, 
was regarded, both at home and abroad, 
as a proof of his unbroken spirit, and was 
so spoken of by the Count de Yergennes, 
in his communications with the American 
commissioners at Paris. 

In the meantinie the success of Stark 
at Bennington in Vermont, on the 16th 
of August, had been followed by the 
capitulation of the army of Burgoyne at 
Saratoga, which took place a few days 
after the affair at Germantown. This 
capitulation was an all-important event in 
its influence on the progress of the war; 
but its immediate effect was unpropitious 



134 THE LIFE OF 

to the reputation of the Commander-m- 
chief, who was compelled, at the close of 
the year, to place his army in a state 
of almost total destitution in winter-quar- 
ters at Yalley Forge. The brilliant suc- 
cess of General Gates at Saratoga, in 
contrast with the reverses which had 
befallen the American Army under the 
immediate command of Washington, en- 
couraged the operations of a cabal against 
him, which had been formed by certain 
disaffected officers of the army, and was 
countenanced by a party in Congress. 
The design was, by a succession of meas- 
ures implying a want of confidence, to 
drive Washington to retire from the ser- 
vice in disgust; and, when this object was 
effected, to give the command of the 
army to General Gates, who lent a will- 
ing ear to these discreditable intrigues. 
A foreign officer in the American Army, 
of the name of Conway, was the most 



GEOKGE WASHINGTON. 135 

active promoter of the project, which was 
discovered by the accidental disclosure of 
a part of his correspondence with Gates. 
Washington bore himself on this occasion 
with his usual dignity, and allowed the 
parties concerned, in the army and in 
Congress, to take refuge in explanations, 
disclaimers, and apologies, by which those 
who made them gained no credit, and 
those who accepted them were not de- 
ceived. 

A part of the machinery of this wretch- 
ed cabal was the publication, in London, 
and the republication in New York, of 
the collection of forged letters already 
mentioned, bearing the name of Washing- 
ton, and intended to prove his insincerity 
in the cause of the Revolution. Nothing 
perhaps more plainly illustrates his con- 
scious strength of character, than the dis- 
dainful silence with which he allowed this 
miserable fabrication to remain for twenty 



136 THE LIFE OF 

years without exposure. It was only in 
the year 1796, and when about to retire 
from the Presidency, that he filed, in the 
department of State, a denial of its au- 
thenticity. 

The year 1778 was one of great mo- 
ment. Early in May, intelligence was re- 
ceived by Congress (which sat at York- 
town, in Pennsylvania, during the occu- 
pation of Philadelphia by Sir William 
Howe) that the American commissioners 
in Paris had negotiated treaties of alliance 
and commerce with France. It would be 
easy to prove, from the diplomatic corre- 
spondence of the day, that whatever credit 
is due to the skill with which the nego- 
tiations at Paris were conducted by Frank- 
lin, the confidence reposed by the French 
government in the character of Washing- 
ton was a very great inducement for haz- 
arding a step which involved, as its first 
consequence, a war with Great Britain. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 137 

Sir William Howe had gained nothing 
by the campaign of 1777, though it had 
resulted in the temporary possession of 
Philadelphia. The occupation of that city 
was barren of results; the ministry were 
dissatisfied with his conduct of the war, 
and he resigned his command. Sir Henry 
Clinton was appointed in his place; and 
an expedition against the French posses- 
sions in the West Indies being deter- 
mined upon by the ministry, a strong 
force was detached for that purpose from 
the royal army in America. The evacu- 
ation of Philadelphia, after eight months' 
occupation, was the first step in the new 
plan of campaign. Having shipped his 
cavalry, his German troops, the American 
loyalists, and his heavy baggage, to go 
round by sea. Sir Henry marched for New 
York with the main body of his troops, 
across New Jersey. Washington immedi- 
ately started with his newly organized 



138 THE LIFE OF 

army in pursuit^ and in six days was on 
the left bank of the Delaware. He was 
desirous of bringing the royal army to a 
general engagement ; but the council of 
war called by him was divided on the 
expediency of the measure. General Lee, 
w^ho had been exchanged for the British 
General Prescott and was now second in 
command, vehemently opposed it. Wash- 
ington, however, determined to assume the 
responsibility of the measure ; and hav- 
ing overtaken Sir Henry near Monmouth, 
sent forward Lafayette, and afterwards 
Lee, with a strong advance, to engage 
the royal army. Hastening himself to 
their support, he encoimtered Lee in full 
retreat at the head of five thousand men. 
This retrograde movement was arrested 
by Washington, and the engagement vig- 
orously renewed. The close of the day 
put an end to the conflict ; but Washing- 
ton passed the night with his army on 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 139 

the fieldj determined to renew the action 
the following morning. Sir Henry, how- 
ever, continued his march, undiscovered, 
during the night, and in the morning was 
out of reach. This engagement, though 
hardly to be called a victory, was a de- 
cided advantage on the part of Washing- 
ton. In his own words, "from an unfor- 
tunate and bad beginning, it turned out 
a glorious and happy day." His loss was 
far inferior to that acknowledged by Sir 
Henry Clinton. The British army pur- 
sued its march to New York, and Wash- 
ington, crossing the Hudson, resumed his 
former position at White Plains. 

The day after the battle of Monmouth, 
a correspondence took place between Lee 
and Washington, which resulted in the 
trial of the former by a court-martial. 
The charges were disobedience of orders, 
an unnecessary, disorderly, and shameful 
retreat, and language disrespectful to the 



140 THE LIFE OF 

Commander-in-chief. The com^t spared 
him the epithet of " shameful ; " but 
found him guilty of the rest of the 
charges, and suspended him from his 
command for a twelvemonth. He left 
the army never to return, and died be- 
fore the close of the war, at Philadelphia. 
Washington's heroic patience was never 
more signally displayed than in toler- 
ating as he did, from public motives, for 
three years, the arrogant pretensions of 
this coarse and empty braggart, whom 
recent discoveries have proved also to 
have been a concealed traitor to the 
American cause.* 

In the course of the summer the Count 
d'Estaing, with fourteen sail of the line, 
arrived in the American waters, and a 
combined expedition was undertaken, but 

* The Treason of Lee is placed beyond doubt, and 
the original documents establishing it are published in 
the recent highly valuable monograph of G. H. More, 
Esq., on that subject. 



GEORGE WASPIINGTON. 141 

without success, against the royal forces 
in Newport. Causes of dissatisfaction arose 
between the American officers in command 
in Khode Island and the Count d'Estaing, 
— but the mediating influence of Washing- 
ton was exerted, with consummate skill, 
to avert the consequences. His head- 
quarters were established at Fredericks- 
burg, in New York, about thirty miles 
from West Point, and the campaign closed 
without further events of importance. 

The year 1779 passed without any 
general engagement of the main army 
of Washington. A very extensive expe- 
dition against Canada had been projected 
in Congress; but it was not favored by 
the French government, and was wholly 
discountenanced by Washington. The 
summer was employed by the British 
army in predatory excursions. On the 
American side, a brilliant success was 
gained by General Wayne at Stony 



142 THE LIFE OF 

Point. The British fleet followed Count 
d'Estaing to the West Indies. Sir Henry 
Clinton sailed with a strong detachment 
to the Southern States; and at the close 
of the season the army of General Wash- 
ington went into winter-quarters. In the 
course of the year a visit was made to 
the Commander-in-chief, at his head-quar- 
ters, by M. Gerard, the French Minister, 
who, in his report of their conference to 
the Count de Yergennes, uses the follow- 
ing language : " I have had many conver- 
sations with General Washington, some 
of which have continued for three hours. 
It is impossible for me briefly to com- 
municate the fund of intelligence which 
I have derived from him. . . I will 
now say only, that I have formed as 
high an opinion of the powers of his 
mind, his moderation, his patriotism, and 
his virtues, as I had before conceived, 
from common report, of his military tal- 



GEORGE AVASHINGTON. 143 

ent, and of the incalculable services which 
he has rendered his country." 

Before the end of April, 1780, Lafay- 
ette returned to the United States from 
France, with the news that an auxiliary 
army would be despatched to the assist- 
ance of the Americans. On the 10th of 
July, the first division of the French 
fleet arrived at Newport, under the Chev- 
alier de Ternay, having on board an 
army of five thousand men, commanded 
by the Count de Rochambeau. A second 
division was to follow, but was blockaded 
at Brest. The superiority both by land 
and by sea accordingly remained on the 
side of the British, by whom Count de 
Rochambeau's army was blockaded in 
Newport. In consequence of this state 
of things, no expedition of magnitude 
was attempted by the alHes in the course 
of the year 1780. 

It was during the absence of "Wash- 



144 THE LIFE OF 

ington at Hartford^ to confer with the 
Count de Eochambeau, on a plan of 
operations for the ensuing campaign, that 
the treason of Arnold was discovered, 
and the arrest and execution of the un- 
fortunate Major Andr^ took place. It 
would exceed the limits of these pages to 
enter into a narrative of this event, or 
to engage in the defence of Washington, 
against the reproaches cast upon him, for 
approving the sentence of the court by 
which the case was adjudicated. It is 
sufiicient to say that this unfortunate of- 
ficer was condemned as a spy by a court 
of thirteen officers native and foreign, 
some of them the most intelligent in the 
service. Those who condemn Washington 
for not placing his veto on their sentence, 
should ask themselves, what would prob- 
ably have been the fate of an English 
officer, who should have been discovered 
in citizen's dress, within the lines of the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 145 

French army at Boulogne in 1803; or of 
a French officer who, under similar cir- 
cumstances, should have been caught 
within the English lines at Gibraltar, in 
time of war, plotting with a . traitor for 
the surrender of an important post. It 
may be doubted whether retribution, in 
either case, would have awaited the slow 
motions of a court. Andre's execution as 
a spy has been condemned on the ground 
that, at the time of his arrest, he had a 
free pass from an American general, as 
if it were an apology for a spy, that he 
was in conspiracy with a traitor. Washing- 
ton is liberally " acquitted of all injustice " 
towards Andre, in a memoir by Mr. Locker, 
who, as the friend of Major Andre's sisters, su- 
perintended the interment of their brother's 
remains in Westminster Abbey.* Person- 
ally General Washington was the most hu- 

* Knight's Popular History of England, p. 416. 
13 



146 THE LIFE OF 

mane of men; and it is well known that 
it cost him a painful struggle with his 
feelings, to allow the sentence of the 
court to be executed on the accom- 
plished prisoner. But with respect to 
him, it is scarcely necessary to say, 
that there was nothing in his errand, 
to increase the respect and sympathy, 
inspired by his personal qualities and 
unhappy fate. 

But the great struggle was drawing to 
a close more rapidly than was anticipated. 
The year 1781 witnessed the last military 
operations of decided importance. The 
Count de Grasse having arrived in the 
Chesapeake from the West Indies with a 
commanding fleet and a considerable re- 
inforcement of troops, Washington and 
Eochambeau immediately marched from 
the Hudson to Virginia, to join forces 
with Lafayette, who was stationed at 
Williamsburo" to watch the movements 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 147 

of Lord Cornwallis. On the approach of 
the combined French and American ar- 
mies. Lord CornwalHs intrenched him- 
self at Yorktown, That place was in- 
vested in form on the 30th of Septem- 
ber by the allied army. The outposts 
were in a few days carried by assault; 
and on the 19th of October the army 
of Cornwallis, rather more than seven 
thousand strong, capitulated to the unit- 
ed and greatly superior forces of the 
allies. 

This brilliant success put an end to the 
contest, and General Washington had the 
satisfaction of seeing the war brought to 
a close, under his own immediate auspices 
and command. Negotiations for peace 
commenced at Paris in the summer of 
1782, and the articles of a provisional 
treaty were signed in November of that 
year. Attempts were made by further 
negotiation, in the course of the ensmng 



148 THE LIFE OF 

year, to enlarge the stipulations agreed 
upon, but the definitive treaty was event- 
ually signed at Paris on the 3d of Sep- 
tember, 1783, in the words of the pro- 
visional articles. 

After the surrender of Yorktown and 
the departure of Count de Eochambeau's 
army, General Washington established his 
head-quarters at Newburg, on the Hudson 
Eiver. Here the American Army, in the 
now certain prospect of peace, justly dis- 
satisfied with the want of all provision 
to give effect to the resolution of Octo- 
ber, 1780, by which half-pay for life was 
promised to the ofiicers, endeavored by 
a new appeal to Congress, to obtain a 
definitive settlement of their claims, by 
an equitable commutation. Congress was 
divided on the expediency of the meas- 
ure; and, if it had been unanimous, pos- 
sessed no power to give effect to its 
recommendations. Yague promises were 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 149 

made, but notHng effective done. Great 
irritation arose on the return of the del- 
egates to head-quarters A meeting of 
the officers was called, and an inflamma- 
tory appeal to the army was circulated, 
celebrated as the Neivhirgh Address^ '' in 
which the troops were exhorted not to 
allow themselves to be disbanded till jus- 
tice was obtained." It was a moment of 
great alarm and real danger, but the 
influence of the Commander-in-chief, offi- 
cial and personal, was promptly called 
into action, and moderate counsels pre- 
vailed. 

So tardy were communications across 
the Atlantic at that time, that official in- 
formation of the provisional treaty was 
not received in the United States till the 
spring of 1783, when it came by the way 
of Cadiz; and it was first officially pro- 
claimed to the army on the 19th of April, 
1783, the anniversary of the day on which, 



150 THE LIFE OF 

eight years before, the war commenced at 
Lexington and Concord. Furloughs were 
freely granted to officers and men from 
that time forward, and on the 18th of 
October the army was formally released 
from service. New York was surrendered 
by Sir Guy Carleton to General Wash- 
ington on the 25th November, and on 
the 4th of December the Commander-in- 
chief took an affectionate and pathetic 
leave of his brother officers. Repairing 
to Annapolis, to which place Congress 
had adjourned. General Washington, on 
the 23d of December, made his formal 
resignation in an address of surpassing 
beauty and dignity, which we quote at 
length : — 

"Mr. President, 

"The great events on which my resig- 
nation depended, having at length taken 
place, I have now the honor of offering 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 151 

my sincere congratulations to Congress, 
and of presenting myself before them, to 
surrender into their hands the trust com- 
mitted to me, and to claim the indul- 
gence of retiring from the service of my 
country. 

"Happy in the confirmation of our in- 
dependence and sovereignty, and pleased 
with the opportunity afforded the United 
States of becoming a respectable nation, I 
resign with satisfaction the appointment I 
accepted with diffidence ; a diffidence in 
my abilities to accomplish so arduous a 
task; which, however, was superseded by 
a confidence in the rectitude of our 
cause, the support of the supreme power 
of the Union, and the patronage of 
Heaven. 

"The successful termination of the war 
has verified the most sanguine expecta- 
tions ; and my gratitude for the interposi- 
tion of Providence, and the assistance I 



152 THE LIFE OF 

have received from my countrymen, in- 
creases with every review of the moment- 
ous contest. 

" While I repeat my obligations to the 
army in general, I should do injustice to 
my own feelings not to acknowledge, in 
this place, the peculiar services and dis- 
tinguished merits of the gentlemen who 
have been attached to my person during 
the war. It was impossible the choice 
of confidential officers to compose my 
family should have been more fortunate. 
Permit me, sir, to recommend in particu- 
lar those who have continued in the ser- 
vice to the present moment, as worthy 
of the favorable notice and patronage of 
Congress. 

"I consider it an indispensable duty 
to close this last act of my official life 
by commending the interests of our 
dearest country to the protection of 
Almighty God, and those who have the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 153 

superintendence of them to His holy 
keeping. 

"Having now finished the work as- 
signed me, I retire from the great thea- 
tre of action, and bidding an affectionate 
farewell to this august body, under whose 
orders I have so long acted, I here offer 
my Commission, and take my leave of all 
the employments of public life." 



154 THE LIFE OF 



CHAPTER YII. 

Washington retires to Mount Vernon — Visits the Coun- 
try west of the Alleghanies — Recommends opening a 
Communication between the Head "Waters of the At- 
lantic Rivers and the Ohio — Agricultural Pursuits — 
His Views of Slavery — Critical State of the Country 
— Steps that led to the Formation of the present 
Government — The Federal Convention and Washing- 
ton its President — The Constitution framed — Adopted 
by the States — Washington elected the First Presi- 
dent of the United States, and inaugurated 30th of 
April, 1789. 



Iadiediately on resio-nino- his commis- 
sion General "Washington returned to his 
home at Mount Vernon, which, during 
the eight years of the war, he had vis- 
ited but twice, and then hastily, on his 
way to and from Yorktown in the year 
1781, with the Count de Eochambeau. 
Greatly attached to his agricultural and 



GEOEGE WASHINGTON- 155 

horticultural pursuits, he devoted his time 
to tiie care of his plantations^ garden, and 
grounds. — to the management of what 
was considered in America at that time 
a large landed property; to the extensive 
correspondence which devolved upon him, 
particularly in connection with the events 
of the war; and to the reception and en- 
tertainment of visitors, who came in great 
numbers from every part of the United 
States and from Europe. This last men- 
tioned call upon his time and attention, 
necessarily very serious, was rendered 
less oppressive than it would otherwise 
have been, by the excellent housewifery 
of Mrs. "Washinorton. who administered 
with method and s kill the hberal but un- 
ostentatious hospitahty of Moimt Vernon. 
For two years after the war, he carried 
on his heav;\- correspondence without 
clerical aid, writing and copying his let- 
ters with his own hand. To the close of 



156 THE LIFE OF 

his life he kept his account-books with 
great care and with his own hand, ac- 
cording to the system of double entry. 

In the autumn of 1784, General Wash- 
ington crossed the Alleghanies, partly for 
the purpose of examining the lands which 
he had formerly taken up in that region, 
and partly to explore the head waters 
of the Potomac and James rivers, with 
reference to their connection with the 
streams which flow into the Ohio. This 
was a subject which had, from an early 
period, been familiar to his thoughts, as 
one of vast importance to the growth 
and prosperity of the United States. The 
result of his inquiries was highly favora- 
ble to a system of inland navigation, con- 
necting the Atlantic seaboard with the 
great rivers of the West, and the region 
drained by them. On his return he ad- 
dressed an elaborate, well-reasoned, and 
persuasive letter on the subject to the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 157 

governor of Virginia. This communicar 
tion had a powerful effect on the public 
mind, and led to the organization of the 
James Eiver and Potomac Canal Compa- 
nies. In acknowledgment of his agency in 
bringing about this result, and still more 
in gratitude for his Eevolutionary ser- 
vices, the State of Virginia presented him 
with fifty shares in the Potomac Canal 
Company, valued at ten thousand dollars, 
and one hundred shares in the James 
Eiver Canal Company, valued at fifty 
thousand dollars. In obedience to the 
principle which governed him through 
life, this grant was accepted by Washing- 
ton only on condition, that he should be 
allowed to hold the property in trust for 
some public object The shares in the 
James Eiver Canal were finally appropri- 
ated for the endowment of a college at 
Lexington, m Eockbridge County, Vir- 
ginia, which in consequence assumed the 



158 THE LIFE OF 

name of Washington College. The shares 
in the Potomac Canal Company were 
appropriated for the endowment of a 
university at the seat of the Federal 
Government, — an appropriation which re- 
mains without effect. 

Agriculture was at this period of his 
life, as indeed at almost every period, his 
main occupation. He looked upon his 
official duties, civil and military, as an 
interruption to its pursuit. A resident 
in the lower part of Virginia, and the 
owner of extensive landed estates, he 
was, as a matter of course, a slaveholder. 
His correspondence shows him to have 
been a strict and vigilant, but at the 
same time a just, thoughtful, and hu- 
mane master; studying his own interest 
in the cultivation of his farms, not more 
than the comfort and welfare of his de- 
pendants. In common with most, if not 
all, the leading statesmen of Virginia of 



GEOKGE WASHINGTON. 159 

that day, he was opposed to slavery; but 
he happily lived at a time when the 
subject, which now so violently agitates 
the American Union, had not yet been 
drawn into the party divisions of the 
country, and was discussed exclusively in 
its bearings on the public welfare. As 
early as 1786, he had formed a resolu- 
tion never, unless compelled by particular 
circumstances, "to possess another slave 
by purchase ; " and in a letter to Mr. 
Morris, written in that year, he says : 
"There is not a man living who wishes 
more sincerely than I do to see a plan 
adopted for the abolition of slavery. But 
there is only one proper and effectual 
mode by which it can be accomplished, 
and that is by legislative authority; and 
this, as far as my suffrage will go, will 
never be wanting." This sentiment is 
repeated in several parts of his corre- 
spondence; but his habitual respect for 



160 THE LIFE OF 

the law led him to deprecate all uiter- 
ference with legal rights; and it is the 
object of the letter to Mr. Morris, from 
which the above extract is taken, to re- 
monstrate, with reference to a particular 
case, against such interference on the 
part of " individuals and private socie- 
ties." * 

The period succeeding the peace of 
1783, up to the adoption of the Consti- 
tution of the United States in 1788, was 
more critical, with reference to the per- 
manent prosperity of the country, than 
that of the war itself, however oppressive 
and exhausting. A reduction of the states, 
which had declared themselves indepen- 
dent, to the former colonial condition, could 
not have been brought about by continu- 
ing the war ; but the peace found the 
United States without a government, — 
unable to command respect abroad, or to 

* Sparks's Washington, vol. ix. p. 158. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 161 

start upon a career of prosperous growth 
and development at home. The country 
was exhausted by the war 3 there were 
no manufactures, very Httle commerce, 
and no means, except recommendations of 
the Congress of the Confederation, (which 
were treated with utter neglect,) of rais- 
ing a revenue for the purpose either of 
paying the interest of the foreign debt, 
or to meet any public expenditure for 
domestic purposes. The manifold evils of 
this state of things were felt by every 
intelligent person, but the remedy was 
all but hopeless. The most obvious resort 
was to clothe the Federal Congress with 
the power to raise a revenue by imposts 
and direct taxation. But there was, on 
the part of some of the states, a great 
reluctance to confer larger powers on 
that body; and few even of the most 
far-sighted individuals had conceived the 
idea of converting the old confederation, 



162 THE LIFE OF 

which was simply a league of inde- 
pendent states, assembled in Congress, 
each with equal powers, and acting only 
by recommendations addressed to their 
separate state governments, into a fed- 
eral government possessing authority that 
should bind the 'individual citizen. This 
change, however, was at length effected, 
and by a series of agencies, at first in 
striking disproportion to the importance 
of the result, and in no small degree 
under the influence of Washington. Al- 
though wholly retired to private life, his 
name and authority were at this time 
almost the only vital power in the coun- 
try; the common respect and reverence 
for him almost the only bond of union. 

It will be borne in mind, that before 
the adoption of the present Constitution 
of the United States, the several states 
were, in all their commercial affairs, in 
the relation to each other of independent 



GEOEGE WASHINGTON. 163 

nations ; and it happened in some in- 
stances that conterminous states pursued 
a policy of mutual hostility. In the 
month of March, 1785, commissioners on // 
the part of Maryland and Virginia met 
at Alexandria, in the latter state, for the 
purpose of "keeping up harmony in the 
commercial regulations of the two states, 
with reference to the navigation of the 
rivers Potomac and Pocomoke, and of the 
Chesapeake Bay," the waters of which 
were to some extent common to the two 
states. General Washington was one of 
the commissioners on the part of Vir- 
ginia; and his associates being on a visit 
to him at Mount Vernon, it was there 
agreed by them to recommend to their 
respective states the appointment of a 
new commission, with enlarged powers, to 
devise a plan for the establishment, un- 
der the sanction of Congress, of a naval 
force on the Chesapeake Bay, and a uni- 



164 THE LIFE OF 

form tariff of duties on imports, to which 
the laws of the two states should con- 
form. The proposal, thus concerted at 
Mount Vernon, was adopted by the leg- 
islature of Virginia; and being brought 
before that body at a time when it had 
under consideration a project for granting 
enlarged commercial powers to Congress, 
a resolution was passed, directing that so 
much of the report of the commissioners 
as referred to a uniform tariff of duties 
should be communicated to the other 
states, with an invitation to attend the 
proposed meeting. On the 21st of Janu- 
ary, 1786, a resolution passed the legisla- 
ture of Virginia, appointing commissioners 
to meet with those which might be ap- 
pointed by the other states, "to take into 
consideration the trade of the United 
States; to examine the relative situation 
and trade of the said states ; to consider 
how far a uniform system in their com- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 165 

mercial regulations may be necessary to 
their common interest and their perma- 
nent harmony." Washington, at his own 
instance for personal reasons, was not a 
member of this commission, though the 
object was one which he had greatly at 
heart. The meeting was appointed to be 
held in Annapolis, in September, 1786; but 
delegates from five states only attended, '/ 
and some of them with powers too lim- 
ited for any valuable purpose. Nothing 
accordingly was attempted beyond the 
preparation of a report, setting forth the 
existing evils, and recommending to the 
several states to appoint delegates to 
meet at Philadelphia the next May. 
A copy of this report was sent to 
the Congress of the Confederation, which 
still retained a nominal existence ; and 
that body, by recommending the pro- 
posed measure, gave it, in the opinion 
of some persons, that necessary constitu- 



166 THE LIFE OF 

tional sanction, in which the meeting at 
Annapolis was deficient. This report was 
adopted by Virginia, and seven delegates 
appointed, with Washington at their head, 
to represent that state in the proposed 
convention. 

This body, now usually called the " Fed- 
eral Convention," assembled in Philadel- 
phia on the 2d of May, 1787. Washington 
was unanimously elected its president. In 
anticipation of the meeting and the duties 
which might devolve upon its members, 
"he read," says Mr. Sparks, "the history, 
and examined the principles, of the an- 
cient and modern confederacies. There 
is a paper in his handwriting, which con- 
tains an abstract of each, and in which 
are noted, in a methodical order, their 
chief characteristics, the kinds of author- 
ity they possessed, their modes of opera- 
tion, and their defects. The confederacies 
analyzed in this paper are the Lycian, 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 167 

Amphictyonic, Achaean, Helvetic, Belgic, 
and Germanic." The debates in the con- 
vention were principally had in commit- 
tee of the whole, in which, by the ap- 
pointment of Washington as the presiding 
officer of the body, the chair was occupied 
by the Hon. Nathaniel Gorham, of Mas- 
sachusetts. Without his taking an active 
part in the debates, the influence of 
Washington was steadily exerted, and in 
the direction of an efficient central gov- 
ernment./ x The convention remained in 
session about four months; and on the 
17th of September, 1787, the result of 
their labors, as embodied in the present 
Constitution of the United States, was 
communicated to the Federal Congress, 
with a letter signed by General Wash- 
ington, as j)i'6sident of the convention. 
This instrument of government, under 
which the United States have so signally 
prospered for nearly three fourths of a 



168 THE LIFE OF 

century, though not deemed perfect in 
every point by Washington, or probably 
by any of its most ardent friends, was 
regarded by him, and declared to be, in 
his correspondence, the best that could 
be hoped for in the condition of the 
country, and as presenting the only 
alternative for anarchy and civil war. 
"There is a tradition," says Mr. George 
T. Curtis, in his valuable "History of the 
Constitution," * " that when Washington 
was about to sign the instrument, he rose 
from his seat, and holding the pen in 
his hand, after a short pause, pronounced 
these words : ' Should the states reject 
this excellent constitution, the probability 
is that an opportunity will never again 
be offered to cancel another in peace, — 
the next will be drawn in blood.'" 

The convention, by which the Constitu- 
tion was framed, was not clothed with 

* Vol. ii. p. 487. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 169 

legislative power, nor was the Congress 
of the Confederation competent to accept 
or reject the new form of government. 
It was referred by them to the several 
states, represented by conventions of the 
people; and it was provided in the in- 
strument itself, that it should become the 
supreme law of the land, when adopted 
by nine states. The residue of the year 
1787, and the first half of 1788 were 
taken up with the holding of these con- 
ventions, and it was not till the summer 
of 1788 that the ratification of nine 
states was obtained. The action of these 
conventions was watched with great so- 
licitude by Washington, and his influence 
was efficiently employed, through the 
medium of his correspondence, to procure 
the adoption of the new form of govern- 
ment. 

The 4th of March, 1789, had been 
appointed by the Congress, as the time 

15 



170 THE LIFE OF 

when the new Constitution should go 
into operation. Previous to that time, 
the choice of the electoral colleges, and 
of the senators and representatives who 
were to compose the first Congress, was 
to be had in the several states. By the 
Constitution, as originally framed, two per- 
sons were to be voted for by the presi- 
dential electors, as president and vice- 
president, without designating for which 
of the two offices the candidates were 
respectively supported. The candidate re- 
ceiving the majority of votes was to be 
the president; and in case of equality of 
two or more candidates, the House of 
Kepresentatives, voting not per capita but 
by states, the members from each state, 
whether great or small, casting one vote, 
was to designate a president and vice- 
president, from the three highest candi- 
dates having an equal number of votes. 
The whole number of electoral votes 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 171 

given in the first election was but sixty- 
nine, and they were all for General 
Washington. Thirty-four votes were given 
for John Adams, and a much smaller 
number of votes being scattered among 
several other candidates, George Wash- 
ington and John Adams were elected the 
first President and Vice-President of the 
United States. The private and confiden- 
tial correspondence of Washington shows 
the sincerity of his uniform public decla- 
rations, that he shrunk from the of&ce 
with unafiected reluctance, both as a can- 
didate and after his election. He is prob- 
ably the only person who has ever been 
called to the chair of state, without hav- 
ing desired, and to some extent perhaps 
exerted himself to obtain, the nomination. 
Such was the apathy of the country 
with reference to the new form of gov- 
ernment, and such the tardiness of the 
new Congress in coming together, that al- 



172 THE LIFE OF 

though the 4th of March, 1789, was ap- 
pointed as the day of meetingj a quorum 
of the two Houses was not assembled till 
the 6th of April. The first business was 
to count the electoral votes for president 
and vice-president, and to communicate 
the result to the persons chosen. Wash- 
ington received the ofiicial notification of 
his election at Mount Yernon, on the 
14th of April, and started immediately 
for the seat of government, which was 
for the first two years established at 
New York. His journey through the 
states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and 
New Jersey, was a triumphal procession. 
Debates in Congress on the proper ofii- 
cial style by which he was to be ad- 
dressed, and a disagreement between the 
two Houses on that subject, which ended 
in nothing being done, caused some de- 
lay; and it was not till the 30th of 
April, 1789, that he took the oath pre- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 173 

scribed by the constitution, as the first 
President of the United States. There 
were other statesmen in the country who 
stood high in the respect and in the 
affections of the people ; but the prefer- 
ence for Washington was absolute and 
unqualified. No other individual was 
thought of for a moment as a rival can- 
didate. In advance of all the constitu- 
tional forms of election, which in his case 
were but forms, he was chosen unani- 
mously in the hearts of the people. He 
was fifty-seven years old when he en- 
tered upon the office. His frame was 
naturally vigorous and athletic, but its 
strength was perhaps somewhat impaired 
by the labors and exposures of two wars, 
and by repeated severe attacks of dis- 
ease. Such an attack threatened his life 
immediately after entering upon the presi- 
dency ; and in a letter to Lafayette he 
speaks of himself, at the age of fifty-one, 



174 THE LIFE OF 

as having inherited the constitution of a 
short-lived family. His father died young, 
but his venerable mother lived to witness 
his elevation to the presidency, and died 
at the age of eighty-two. Washington 
had made a farewell visit to her before 
repairing to the seat of government. His 
great elevation and distinguished honors 
produced no change in her simple mode 
of life. She occupied, to the last, the 
humble dwelling of one upright story at 
Fredericksburg, in which he had passed 
his boyhood, and which, somewhat mod- 
ernized, is stiU standing. Her habitual 
commendation of him was, that " George 
had always been a good son." 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 175 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Washington's Administration continued througli two Terms 
of Office — Peculiar Difficulties at Home and Abroad 
— Tendency toward the Formation of Parties — The 
Cabinet divided — Growth of Party-Spirit — Washing- 
ton unanimously reelected — Retirement of Jefferson 
and Hamilton from the Cabinet — War between France 
and England — Neutrality of the United States — Vio- 
lated by both the Belligerents — Offensive Proceedings 
of Genet, the French Minister — Mission of Jay to Eng- 
land — His Treaty unpopular — Attempt in the House 
of Representatives to withhold the Appropriations to 
carry it into Effect — Washington refuses to communi- 
cate the Instructions under which it was negotiated. 

At the close of his first presidential 
term of four years, though extremely 
desirous of retiring from public life, he 
yielded to the urgency of friends of all 
parties, and consenting to accept the 
office for a second period, was again 
unanimously elected. His administration, 



\ 



176 THE LIFE OF 

therefore, may be spoken of as covering 
a space of eight years, from the date of 
the new government. As that govern- 
ment was, in its leading features, a new 
pohtical system, and all its departments 
were to be organized and put in action, 
for the first time, unusual difficulties at- 
tended his administration, for the want 
of precedents to which he could look for 
guidance. Other difficulties grew out of 
the state of public affairs abroad and at 
home. The interest felt in the American 
Eevolution by the friends of liberty in 
Europe had to a considerable degree 
passed away, and the United States had 
not acquired a strength which enabled 
them to command the respect of foreign 
powers. Worse than this, it was some 
time before a fiscal system could be or- 
ganized, and a revenue raised for paying 
the interest of the foreign debt, — a debt 
paltry in amount, but no debt is small 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 177 

which a man is unable to pay. Difficul- 
ties arose with England, relative to the 
execution of the treaty of 1783, by which 
the independence of the United States 
was acknowledged. She complained that 
the states threw obstacles in the way of 
the recovery of debts due to British sub- 
jects ; and the United States in turn 
complained that the military posts on 
the northwestern frontier were retained 
by England, and the Indians encouraged 
in their hostility against the Union. Soon 
the French Kevolution broke out ; and 
each of the belligerents gave great cause 
of complaint to the American govern- 
ment. Meantime, important questions and 
interests divided opinion and gradually 
led to the formation of parties at home : 
the assumption by Congress of the revo- 
lutionary debts of the states; the fund- 
ing system; the location of the seat of 
the federal government; the taxes to 



178 THE LIFE OP 

which resort had been had to create a 
revenue; the estabhshment of a national 
bank; and, as the French Revolution ad- 
vanced, the relations of the Union to the 
two great belligerents. 

At the commencement of his adminis- 
tration, and before the organization of 
the parties which afterwards took place. 
General Washington surrounded himself, 
in the executive ofi&ces, with the most 
distinguished men in the country. Mr. 
Jefferson in the department of state and 
Mr. Hamilton in the treasury, the pro- 
spective leaders of the two great parties 
into which the country was before long 
divided, received equal marks of his con- 
fidence ; and when his retirement from 
office at the end of the first term was 
proposed by him, they, with equal ur- 
gency, entreated him to accept a re-nom- 
ination. Had it been possible for any 
person to administer the presidential of- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 179 

fice without the aid of party support^ or 
rather to conciliate unanimous support 
by merits and services, which win the 
respect and gratitude of all parties, 
Washington was certainly marked out by 
the entire course of his life and the his- 
tory of the country as such a person. It 
was his earnest desire to give this char- 
acter to his administration. He had com- 
posed it of the individuals who, in dif- 
ferent parts of the Union, possessed most 
of the public confidence, and whom he 
had called to his assistance, on the sole 
ground of being best qualified to conduct 
the public business to the satisfaction of 
the people. But the administration of a 
government, and especially one coming 
into existence, where much of the detail 
of organization is to be struck out anew, 
necessarily assumes a certain leading char- 
acter founded on general principles and 
ideas, with respect to which the judg- 



180 THE LIFE OF 

merits of men naturally differ. It is only 
in times of extreme peril, and hardly 
then, that they can be brought to think 
alike and act in one united mass, without 
party divisions. 

General Washington's administration 
commenced with a state of pubhc opin- 
ion predisposed to the formation of par- 
ties. The constitution had been adopted, 
in the most important states, by slender 
majorities, and in the face of a strong 
opposition. Those who ojpposed the adop- 
tion of the constitution were, generally 
speaking, persons who regarded a strong 
central government with apprehension, as 
dangerous to the prerogatives of the 
state governments and the liberties of 
the people. It was a matter of course 
that, after the adoption of the constitu- 
tion, the measures of the new govern- 
ment, which tended to give it strength 
and efiiciency, should be feared and op- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 181 

posed by the same class of statesmen 
and citizens. Among these measures were 
some which, by their friends, were deemed 
of vital importance to the government of 
the country, such as the funding system, 
the assumption of the revolutionary debts 
of the several states, and the establish- 
ment of a national bank. On these meas- 
ures the members of the first Cabinet 
were divided. Mr. Hamilton, the secre- 
tary of the treasury, by whom they were 
proposed, and Knox, the secretary of war, 
were on one side ; Zvlr. Jefferson, the sec- 
retary of state, and Mr. Eandolph, the 
attorney-general, on the other. The po- 
litical influences throughout the country 
were about equally divided, Mr. Hamilton 
and Mr. Jefferson being respectively the 
acknowledged representatives of the sys- 
tems, which favored and opposed a strong 
central government. General Washing- 
ton, with untiring assiduity and patience, 



182 THE LIFE OF 

sought to conciliate the opposite opinions, 
holding himself in suspense, as long as 
the public service admitted, as to the 
adoption of particular measures, and seek- 
ing advice with equal anxiety on both 
sides. Eventually, however, a decision 
must be made; the measure is a distinct 
political issue and must be adopted or 
rejected. In reference to the subjects 
above referred to, the President sustained 
the general views of the secretary of the 
treasury; and in this way, though stand- 
ing aloof from all electioneering plans and 
arrangements, became at length identified 
in public opinon with the principles and 
measures of the party of which Mn 
Hamilton was the acknowledged leader. 
His great name and spotless character 
shielded him, for a considerable time, 
from the assaults of party warfare. The 
persons that opposed his administration 
were content with condemning its meas- 



//>*► 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 183 

ures and inveighing against those mem- 
bers of the Cabinet and of Congress by 
whom they were projected and sustained. 
Some check was imposed on all general 
censures upon his administration, so long 
as Mr. Jefferson remained at the head of 
it, and responsible even for some of the 
measures most obnoxious to its oppo- 
nents, such as the proclamation of neu- 
trality in the war between France and 
England. All restraint of this kind ceased 
with his retirement from the Cabinet 
soon after the commencement of his sec- 
ond term. That of Mr. Hamilton took 
place not long afterward. But the with- 
drawal of these great rivals, instead of 
relieving Washington from the embarrass- 
ments arising from their hostile relations 
to each other, w^as in fact the signal for 
a stricter organization, in Congress and 
throughout the country, of the parties of 
which they were severally the leaders. 



184 THE LIFE OF 

Mr. Hamilton was understood to carry 
with him more of the confidence and 
sympathy of the President, who was from 
that time more and more identified in 
public opinion with the federal, which 
was still the dominant, party. Party def- 
amation, however, reached him only by 
slow degrees, and, if one may use that 
phrase, with moderation. He possessed 
a hold on the affections of the country too 
strong to be seriously loosened by news- 
paper diatribes. It was notorious to the 
whole people, that office, so far from 
being an object of his ambition, was re- 
garded by him as a burden. His revo- 
lutionary services were still everywhere 
freshly and enthusiastically appreciated. 
Men of high character, though opposed 
to his political system, desired to treat 
him personally with respect; vulgar de- 
traction could not reach him. Accord- 
ingly, though parties might be considered 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 185 

as distinctly organized by the close of 
the first term of his administration^ he 
was, as we have stated, unanimously re- 
elected, having received one hundred and 
thirty-two votes, in the electoral colleges, 
— that being the entire number of the 
presidential electors. 

In the first year of his administration, 
the President made a hasty tour through 
the Eastern States of the Union ; and, in 
the following spring, he visited the South- 
ern States, — on each occasion (it is men- 
tioned as a trait of manners) travelling 
with his own carriage and horses. The 
United States at that time numbered a 
population of about four millions ; the 
largest cities, Philadelphia, Boston, and 
New York, were then small towns ; the 
great branches of industry were almost 
unknown ; a small military force guarded 
the Indian frontier ; there was not a single 
public vessel ^ nor a state government 



186 THE LIFE OF 

west of the Alleghanies. This state of 
things but ill sustains the comparison 
with that which we now behold in the 
American Union : thirty-three states^ some 
of the largest in the basin of the Missis- 
sippi, and two on the Pacific Ocean ; a 
population of thirty millions ; a commercial 
tonnage inferior to that of England alone, 
if inferior even to that; a highly ad- 
vanced condition of the great industrial 
pursuits ; a respectable military and naval 
establishment ; and creditable progress in 
science and literature. Yet the United 
States, as Washington saw them on his 
tours in 1789 and 1790, presented such 
a contrast with the colonies as he trav- 
ersed them ' on his way to Boston in 
1756, as was probably never brought 
within the experience of one man, and 
within so narrow a compass as thirty- 
three years. 

Washington entered upon his second 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 187 

term of the presidential office, to which, 
as we have seen, he had been unanimous- 
ly re-elected, on the 3d of March, 1793. 
He still stood before the country with 
unshaken personal popularity, in a rela- 
tion unshared, indeed unapproached by 
any other individual, but at length driven 
by the force of circumstances, and strongly 
against his private impulses, into the po- 
sition of the head of an administration, 
which, if warmly supported, was also 
warmly opposed. Shortly after the com- 
mencement of his second term of office, 
the war between France and England 
broke out. The French revolution, as was 
natural from the all-important services 
rendered by France to the United States 
in their own revolutionary struggle, en- 
listed the warm sympathy of the Ameri- 
can people. Washington fully shared this 
sentiment, and his great personal regard 
for Lafayette, with whom he kept up a 



188 THE LIFE OF 

regular correspondence^ and from whom 
he naturally derived his general impres- 
sions of the march of events, led him to 
look with a favorable eye upon the 
movements, of which Lafayette was for 
a considerable time an influential leader. 
But that judicial moderation, which was 
the most striking trait of Washington's 
character, soon took alarm at the excesses 
of the French revolution, and the conclu- 
sions of his own mind were confirmed by 
the tenor of the despatches of Mr. Gou- 
verneur Morris, who, as the American 
minister at Paris, enjoyed much of the 
confidence of Louis the Sixteenth and his 
family, and of the still faithful friends of 
the tottering monarchy. 

As the United States were first intro- 
duced to the family of nations by the 
alliance with France of 1778, the very 
important question arose, on the break- 
ing out of the war between France and 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 189 

England, how far they were bound to 
take part in the contest. The second 
article of the treaty of alliance seemed 
to limit its operation to the then existing 
war between the United States and Great 
Britain; but by the eleventh article the 
two contracting powers agreed to "guar- 
antee mutually from the present time 
and 'forever, against all other powers/' the 
territories of which the allies might be 
in possession respectively at the moment 
the war between France and Great Brit- 
ain should break out, which was antici- 
pated as the necessary consequence of 
the alliance. 

Not only were the general sympathies 
of America strongly with France, but the 
course pursued by Great Britain toward 
the United States, since the peace of 
1783, was productive of extreme irrita- 
tion, especially her refusal to give up 
the western posts, which, as has been 



190 THE LIFE OP 

intimated, had the effect of involving 
the northwestern frontier in a prolonged 
and disastrous Indian war. These causes, 
together with the recent recollections of 
the revolutionary struggle, disposed the 
popular mind to make common cause 
with France, in what was regarded as 
the war of a people struggling for free- 
dom against the combined despots of 
Europe. Washington, however, from the 
first, determined to maintain the neutral- 
ity of the country. The news of the 
war reached him at Mount Yernon, and 
he immediately addressed letters to the 
heads of department, to prepare them to 
express their opinions, on his return to 
the seat of government, as to the meas- 
ures necessary to prevent the country 
from being drawn into the vortex. They 
agreed unanimously on the expediency 
of issuing a proclamation of neutrality, 
and of receiving a minister from the 



GEOEGE WASHINGTON. 191 

French republic ; while on some other 
points submitted to them, especially the 
extent of the above-mentioned " guaranty/' 
the members of the Cabinet were equally 
divided. 

This proclamation, though draughted by 
Mr. Jefferson and unanimously adopted 
by the Cabinet, was violently assailed by 
the organs of the party which followed 
his lead. A series of questions which 
General Washington had confidentially 
submitted to the Cabinet, embracing all 
the phases of the relations between the 
two countries, had found its way to 
the public, and the President was as- 
sumed to have answered in his own 
mind, adversely to France, every question 
proposed by him for the opinion of his 
constitutional advisers. The growing ex- 
citement of the popular mind was fanned 
to a flame by the arrival at Charleston, 
South Carolina, of "Citizen" Genet, who 



192 THE LIFE OF 

was sent as the minister of the French 
KepubHc to the United States. Without 
repairing to the seat of government^ or 
being accredited in any way, in his offi- 
cial capacity, he began to fit out priva- 
teers in Charleston, to cruise against the 
commerce of England. Although the ut- 
most gentleness and patience were ob- 
served by the executive of the United 
States in checking this violation of their 
neutrality. Genet assumed from the first 
a tone of defiance, and threatened before 
long to appeal from the government to 
the people. These insolent demonstra- 
tions were of course lost upon Washing- 
ton's firmness and moral courage. They 
distressed, but did not in the slightest 
degree intimidate him; and their effect 
on the popular mind was to some extent 
neutralized by the facts, that the chief 
measures to maintain the neutrality of 
the country had been unanimously ad- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 193 

vised by the Cabinet, and that the 
duty of rebuking his intemperate course 
had devolved upon the secretary of state, 
the recognized head of the party to which 
Genet looked for sympathy. 

If the conduct of France and of the 
French minister gave great offence to the 
American government, that of England 
was scarcely less exceptionable. Besides 
the causes of irritation already mentioned, 
she had added materially to the existing 
animosity, by orders in council, by which 
the lawful carrying-trade of the United 
States was vexatiously interfered with, 
and still more by the impressment of 
seamen from our vessels. At the close 
of the first year of President Washing- 
ton's second administration, a very able 
and elaborate report was drawn up by 
Mr. Jefferson, then about to retire from 
office, on the commercial relations of 
the country. At the session of Congress 

17 



194 THE LIFE OF 

of 1794, a discrimination against the 
commerce of England was proposed in 
a series of resolutions introduced by Mr. 
Madison, the leader of the opposition 
in the House of Representatives, and a 
statesman whose general moderation was 
not less conspicuous than his ability and 
patriotism. Proportionate weight attached 
to a measure brought forward under his 
advocacy. The subject was debated in 
various forms in the course of the ses- 
sion, and an act passed the House of 
Eepresentatives embracing the principle 
of discrimination, which Avas, however, 
lost in the Senate, by the casting vote 
of the vice-president. 

In this critical state of affairs, General 
Washington determined to take a decisive 
step to extricate the country from the 
embarrassment of being at variance, at 
the same time, with both of the belliger- 
ents. This step was the appointment of 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 195 

a special minister to England ; and the 
selection for this important trust of the 
chief justice of the United States, John 
Jay, one of the wisest and most circum- 
spect, as well as one of the most experi- 
enced, of the public men of the day. His 
nomination was violently assailed by the 
opposing iDarty, and barely passed the 
Senate. He succeeded in negotiating a 
treaty, by which the princij)al points 
in controversy between the two govern- 
ments were settled : the western posts 
were given up ; indemnification promised 
by the United States for the losses accru- 
ing by the non-payment of debts due to 
British creditors^ and by Great Britain for 
illegal captures; and the commercial inter- 
course of the two nations was in most re- 
spects satisfactorily regulated. The twelfth 
article failed to obtain the confirmation of 
the Senate, inasmuch as it stipulated that 
molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton, 



196 THE LIFE OF 

should not be carried in American ves- 
sels, either from the British islands or 
from the United States, to any foreign 
port • the great agricultural staple of the 
country, of which more than four millions 
of bales will be exported the present year 
(1860), not being known, sixty-five years 
ago, to the negotiators on either side as 
an article of American production 1 

On the arrival and before the official 
promulgation of the treaty, it was vio- 
lently assailed. It was barely adopted by 
the constitutional majority (two thirds) 
of the Senate, and on its official publica- 
tion became the subject of unmeasured 
denunciation. Boston led the way in a 
town meeting, where resolutions, strongly 
condemning the treaty, were adopted and 
ordered to be transmitted to the Presi- 
dent. He had made up his mind that 
the public interest required the confirma- 
tion of the treaty, and returned to the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 197 

Boston remonstrants a dispassionate an- 
swer to that effect. With this example 
from a portion of the country, where the 
strength of his administration was con- 
centrated, it was not likely that the tone 
of opposition would be gentler in other 
parts of the Union. On the contrary, the 
vehemence with which the treaty was 
assailed daily gathered strength, and at 
length the barriers of deference toward 
the personal character of the President 
were wholly broken down. "The mission 
of Jay," says Chief Justice Marshall, in 
his "Life of Washington," "visibly affected 
the decorum which had been usually ob- 
served toward him, and the ratification 
of the treaty brought into open view 
feelings which had long been ill con- 
cealed. With equal virulence the mili- 
tary and political character of the Presi- 
dent was attacked, and he was averred 
to be totally destitute of merit either as 



198 THE LIFE OF 

a soldier or a statesman. The calumnies 
with which he was assailed were not con- 
fined to his public conduct ; even his 
qualities as a man were the subject of 
detraction. That he had violated the 
constitution in negotiating a treaty with- 
out the previous advice of the Senate, 
and in embracing within that treaty sub- 
jects belonging exclusively to the legisla- 
ture, was openly maintained, for which an 
impeachment was publicly suggested- and 
that he had drawn from the treasury for 
his private use more than the salary 
annexed to his office, was unblushingly 
asserted ! " Such was the frenzy of party ; 
it afflicted Washington, but did not cause 
him to swerve a hair's breadth from his 
course. 

An attempt was made, in the House of 
Kepresentatives, to withhold the ajDpropri- 
ations necessary to carry the treaty into 
effect. The party metaphysics of the day 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 199 

revelled in the plausible argument, which 
has since reappeared on similar occasions, 
that, as no money can be constitutionally 
drawn from the treasury without a spe- 
cific appropriation, it was not competent 
for the President and Senate, as the 
treaty-making power, to pledge the faith 
of the country to the expenditure of 
money. It was forgotten, however, that 
a treaty is, by the same constitutional 
authority, the supreme law of the land, 
and, as such, binding on the conscience 
of the legislature. The extreme views 
of the opponents of the administration 
did not prevail, and the appropriations 
necessary to carry the treaty into effect 
passed the two Houses. It was on this 
subject that Mr. Fisher Ames, of Mas- 
sachusetts, made the celebrated speech, 
which is still freshly remembered. 

Among the other measures of the op- 
position, was the demand made by the 



200 THE LIFE OF 

House of EejDresentatives for the commu- 
nication of the instructions under which 
the treaty was negotiated. In the mod- 
ern usage of Congress, a call of this 
kind from either House is complied with 
as a matter of course ; containing, as it 
always does, in important cases, a reser- 
vation that the communication can, in 
the President's opinion, be made without 
detriment to the pubhc service. The 
practice of the government had not yet 
been established by usage, in reference to 
subjects of this kind. The demand for 
the communication of the instructions 
under which Mr. Jay had acted, was re- 
garded, and justly, as a hostile movement 
against the administration, and the Presi- 
dent refused to communicate the paper. 
He planted himself resolutely on the 
ground, that the treaty-making power 
was confided by the constitution to the 
President and Senate, and that it was 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 201 

not competent for the House of Eepresent- 
atives to require the communication of 
the instructions, which might have been 
given to the negotiators. The resolution, 
as originally moved, made an unqualified 
demand for the instructions and other 
papers connected with the treaty. Fur- 
ther reflection led the mover (Mr. Living- 
ston) so far to modify the call, as to ex- 
cept from it papers, the communication 
of which might affect existing negotia- 
tions. A further amendment was moved 
by Mr. Madison, to except such papers 
"as it might be inconsistent with the 
interests of the United States at this 
time to disclose." But this wise and 
temperate suggestion, from the ablest 
and most sagacious member of the op- 
position, was rejected by a decisive vote 
of the House. Had it passed, it is prob- 
able that the President would have com- 
municated the instructions, which, in the 



202 THE LIFE OF 

absence of that qualification^ he resolutely 
withheld. 

No transaction in the civil hfe of the 
President throws stronger light on the 
firmness of his character and his resolute 
adherence to principle. This has been 
shown by subsequent events more clearly 
than it was understood at the time. It 
was believed by the opponents of the 
administration^ and that impression was 
no doubt shared to some extent by the 
pubhc, that the instructions given to Mr. 
Jay might contain matters, which it would 
not be entirely convenient to the admin- 
istration, or the President as its head, to 
disclose. It was probably supposed by 
many persons, that Washington would 
have yielded to the request of the House 
of Kepresentatives, had not some motive 
stronger than mere abstract principle 
prevented his doing so. It is the only 
instance, probably, in the history of the 



GEOKGE WASHINGTON. 203 

government, where a paper which could 
be laid before the public without incon- 
venience to the country or the adminis- 
tration, has, when asked for by either 
House of Congress, been withheld. Such, 
however, was indubitably the fact in this 
instance. The instructions in question re- 
mained for thirty years buried in the pub- 
lic archives, and undivulged. At length, 
in compliance with a call of the Senate 
of the United States in 1825, and in ref- 
erence to the illegal captures of Ameri- 
can vessels, made by the French cruisers 
prior to 1800, a mass of papers, filling 
a large octavo volume, was communi- 
cated to the Senate, and among them 
these once celebrated instructions. It 
was then found, by the few who took 
the trouble to examine them, as a mat- 
ter of historical curiosity, that nothing 
could be more innocent; that they con- 
tained nothing which the most preju- 



204 THE LIFE OF 

diced opponent could have tortured to 
the discredit of the administration; and 
that Washington had no motive whatever 
for withholding them^ but that of consti- 
tutional principle. 



il 






GEORGE WASHINGTON. 205 



CHAPTER IX. 

Insurrection in Pennsylvania suppressed -^- Washington's 
Interest in Lafayette — His Son received at Mount 
Vernon — Close of the Second Term of Office and 
Farewell Address — Denunciation of the spurious Let- 
ters — Retirement from the Presidency — Return to 
Mount Vernon — Rupture between the United States 
and France — Washington appointed Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral — Anticipations of the Conflict — Downfall of the 
Directory, and Accommodation with France. 

The limits of this work do not admit 
of a detailed narrative of events, but we 
ought not omit all mention of the firm- 
ness and resolution of Washington in 
calling into action the military force of 
the Union, to suppress almost the only 
formidable attempt to resist the laws, 
which has taken place since the adoption 
of the federal constitution. The tax 
levied on distilled spirits, in 1792, had 



206 THE LIFE OF 

been, from the first, unpopular in some 
portions of the country, and especially 
in western Pennsylvania. The newspa- 
pers teemed with inflammatory appeals 
to the people ; the payment of the duty 
was in many cases refused ; the tax- 
gatherers and other ofi&cers of the United 
States were insulted; meetings to oppose 
the law were held, and at length prepa- 
rations made for organized forcible resist- 
ance. These proceedings extended over a 
period of nearly two years. Trusting to 
the return of reason on the part of the 
disaffected, no coercive measures, beyond 
the ordinary application of the law, were 
for a long time resorted to by the fed- 
eral government. This lenity was, how- 
ever, ascribed to fear, and led to daily 
increasing boldness on the part of the 
malecontents in western Pennsylvania, till, 
in 1794, it became manifest that more 
decisive measures must be adopted. The 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 207 

militia of the neighboring States of New 
Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, were 
called out, in aid of the militia of Penn- 
sylvania, to the amount in the whole of 
fifteen thousand troops. The President 
avowed the intention of taking the field 
in person, and repaired to the rendez- 
vous of the troops at Cumberland and 
Bedford. These demonstrations produced 
the desired result ; the disaffected per- 
ceived the madness of their course, and 
the insurrection subsided without a con- 
flict. 

President Washington's sympathies were 
warmly enlisted in favor of Lafayette, 
after it became necessary for him to 
abandon his army and give himself up 
to the Prussians. On his first arrival in 
this country, he had the good fortune, 
as we have seen, to gain the confidence 
of the Commander-in-chief, which he re- 
tained, by the uniform propriety of his 



208 THE LIFE OP 

conduct, to the close of the war. There 
is no stronger testimony to the sohd 
merit of the yonng French nobleman, 
than his having played his difficult part, 
military and political, to the entire satis- 
faction of his illustrious American chief 
The ties of personal attachment between 
them were added to those of official con- 
fidence and respect. A friendly corre- 
spondence was kept up between Washing- 
ton and Lafayette and his wife, after the 
close of the Eevolutionary War. The 
hopeful interest taken by Washington in 
the French revolution, in its early stages, 
was, as has been stated, in some degree 
inspired by regard for Lafayette, and by 
confidence in his principles, of which he 
had given such satisfactory proof in this 
country. After his denunciation by the 
Jacobins at Paris and his escape from 
his army, Washington, having heard that 
Madame Lafayette was in want abroad, 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 209 

endeavored, through our ministers^ to 
contribute to her relief, delicately seek- 
ing to make his donation assume the 
form of the repayment of a debt. After 
Lafayette, by a refinement of barbarous 
stupidity of which it would not be easy 
to find a parallel, had, though a fugi- 
tive from the guillotine in Paris, been 
thrown into a fortress in Austria, Wash- 
ington addressed a letter in his favor to 
the Emperor of Germany. It received 
no answer ; and Lafayette remained in 
the fortress of Olmlitz, till, by a just 
retribution, his enlargement, which was 
refused to the respectful request of 
Washington, was extorted by the com- 
mand of Napoleon. Sir Walter Scott, by 
a strange inadvertence, states, that La- 
fayette was given up on the 19 th of 
December, 1795, in exchange for the 
Duchess d'Angouleme. His release was 
peremptorily demanded by Napoleon in 



210 THE LIFE OF 

the conferences at Leoben, which pre- 
ceded the treaty of Campo Formio^ and 
he was finally set at liberty on the 23d 
of September, 1797. 

During his confinement, and while Ma- 
dame Lafayette was imprisoned in Paris, 
(awaiting that fate which in one day had 
smitten her grandmother, the Duchess 
de Noailles, her mother, the Duchess 
d'Ayen, and her sister, the Countess de 
Noailles, but which she haj)pily escaped 
by the downfall of Eobespierre,) her 
son, George Washington Lafayette, just 
of age for the conscription, succeeded, 
through the friendly aid of the late 
Messrs. Thomas H. Perkins and Joseph 
Kussell, of Boston, in making his escape 
to this country. He found a paternal 
welcome at Mount Yernon, where he 
lived, as a member of the family, for 
about three years, and returned to 
France on the liberation of his father. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 211 

During the residence of young Lafayette 
at Mount Yernon, the Duke of Orleans 
(afterwards King Louis Philippe) was 
also a visitor there with his brother; and 
tradition points to the border of the 
paper-hangings in one of the parlors, as 
having been cut out and prepared for y 
pasting on the walls, by these young 
French exiles (in conjunction with the 
youthful members of the Washington 
family) ; happier perhaps, certainly freer 
from care, while so employed, than at 
any earlier or later period of their check- 
ered and eventful lives. 

At length the last year of General 
Washington's second quadrennial term of 
office arrived. Suggestions began to be 
made to him by his friends, looking to 
another reelection, but nothing could 
now shake his purpose to retire -, and he ; 
determined to put all doubt on that sub- 
ject at rest, by a very formal announce- 



212 THE LIFE OF 

ment of his purpose. Having this im- 
mediate object in view^ with parental 
interest in the present welfare of his 
countrymen, and provident forethought 
for the future, he determined to connect 
with it another object of still greater 
ulterior importance : a Farewell Address 
to his fellow-citizens, embodying his last 
counsels for their instruction and guid- 
ance. The steps taken by Washington 
for the preparation of this address, were 
marked with more than his usual circum- 
spection and care. They have been the 
subject of some difference of opinion and 
discussion, at different times, in which 
it would exceed the limits of this work 
to engage. All the known facts of the 
case are brought together and set forth, 
with great acuteness and precision, by 
Hon. Horace Binney, in the essay to 
which allusion has been made in the 
preface to these pages, entitled ^^An In- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 213 

quiry into the Formation of Washington's 
Farewell Address." 

It had been the intention of Washing- 
ton, from an early period of his admin- 
istration, to decline a reelection at the 
close of the term of office for which he 
was chosen in 1789. Early in 1792, he 
considered the expediency of a farewell 
address in connection with the announce- 
ment of his purpose to retire. Among 
other confidential friends consulted by 
him at this time was Mr. Madison, with 
whom he communicated both orally at 
Philadelphia, and by letter after the re- 
cess of Congress. Mr. Madison, in reply 
to his letter, after earnestly dissuading 
the President from his purpose to retire, 
transmitted to him the draught of an ad- 
dress, which has been preserved. It is 
of no great length, and was evidently in- 
tended not to go far beyond the hints 
contained in the President's letter, either 



214 THE LIFE OF 

in the choice or treatment of the topics. 
Washington having been induced, by the 
earnest and unanimous solicitation of his 
friends, to consent to a reelection, this 
address was of course laid aside. 

In the spring of 1796, and in the last 
year of his second administration, having, 
as we have seen, made up his mind irrev- 
ocably to decline a re-nomination, Wash- 
ington again took counsel on the subject 
of a farewell address. In the progress of 
the political divisions of the day, Mr. 
Madison had ceased to be of the number 
of his confidential advisers, and the Presi- 
dent called upon Hamilton to aid him on 
this occasion. Washington's first step was 
to prepare himself a rough sketch of a 
farewell address. It consisted of a few 
preliminary sentences, introducing the 
draught furnished by Mr. Madison in 
1792, (to which, for particular reasons, 
Washington adhered with some tenacity,) 






GEORGE WASHINGTON. 215 

and this was followed by the thoughts 
and sentiments, which he deemed most 
appropriate for such an address. As this 
paper was intended only to furnish ma- 
terialsj that portion of it which follows 
Madison's draughty and was composed by 
Washington himself, is a series of re- 
marks and suggestions, not studiously 
arranged nor elaborated for promulgation. 
This paper was shown by Washington to 
Hamilton, at Philadelphia, in the spring 
of 1796, and the wish expressed that he 
would "re-dress" it. It was also sug- 
gested that, besides doing this, Hamilton, 
if he thought best, should "throw the 
whole into a new form," "predicated 
upon the sentiments contained" in Wash- 
ington's draught. 

This was accordingly done. Hamilton 
first prepared the address, thrown wholly 
into a "new form," and then digested in 
another paper, in connection with Mr. 



216 THE LIFE OF 

Madison's short address, the thoughts and 
suggestions appended to it, as Ave have 
seen, in Washington's original draught. 
The President gave a decided prefer- 
ence to the " new form," and, after very 
careful revision by him, it was published 
on the 19th of September, 1796. 

Of the documents and papers con- 
nected with this interesting production, 
there have been jDreserved, in addition to 
most if not all the correspondence be- 
tween Washington and Hamilton, Wash- 
ington's original rough draught of a fare- 
well address and Hamilton's revision of it, 
(these two papers exist only in the copies 
taken by Mr. Sparks, the originals having 
disappeared,) and Hamilton's original 
draught of an address in the "new form." 
There is also preserved among Hamilton's 
papers "An abstract of Points to form 
an Address," which appears to have been 
drawn up by him as a guide, in prepar- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



217 



ing his original draught. Hamilton's orig- 
inal draught, as revised and corrected and 
adopted by Washington, has disappeared. 
The original manuscript of the Farewell 
Address, from which it was printed, is in 
existence, and it is wholly in the hand- 
writing of Washington. It contains very 
many corrections, erasures, and interlinea- 
tions, which are also all in Washington's 
handwriting. It was presented to the 
editor of the paper in which it was pub- 
lished, Claypoole, at his request, by Wash- 
ington himself; and at Claypoole's decease 
it was purchased, for twenty-five hundred 
dollars, by James Lenox, Esq., of New 
York, who has caused a very carefully \ 
prepared edition of it to be privately 
printed, with all the variations accurately 
noted in the margin. 

The above statement is believed to 
contain the material facts of the case, as 
far as they appear from the papers now 

19 



\y 



218 THE LIFE OF 

in existence. The limits of these pages 
will not admit a more detailed investiga- 
tion of the question of authorship, nor 
could it be made to advantage without 
a careful examination and comparison of 
the original papers in the case. From 
such an examination it will, we think, ap- 
pear, that the Farewell Address, as drawn 
up by Hamilton and published by Wash- 
ington to the people of the United States, 
commencing with the material portions of 
Mr. Madison's draught of 1792, presents, 
in a more developed form, the various 
ideas contained in Washington's original 
draught, and treats, in argumentative 
connection, the topics therein more apho- 
ristically propounded ; the whole combined 
with original suggestions of a kindred 
type from Hamilton's own pen. Great 
skill is evinced by him in interweaving, 
in its proper place, every suggestion con- 
tained in Washington's draught, (with a 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 219 

single exception) ; nor is there believed to 
be anything superadded by Hamilton, of 
which the germ at least cannot be found 
in Washington's draught, in his multifari- 
ous correspondence, or in other produc- 
tions unquestionably from his pen. 

A single topic contained in Washing- 
ton's draught was excluded, with his full 
consent and approbation, from the pub- 
lished address. The passage in question 
consisted of suggestions of a personal 
character, — an indignant allusion to the 
efforts made by "some of the gazettes of 
the United States," by misrepresentations 
and falsehoods, "to wound his reputation 
and feelings," and " to weaken if not en- 
tirely destroy the confidence" reposed in 
him by the country; a proud assertion 
of the uprightness of his intentions; a 
touching demand of respect for " the gray 
hairs of a man" who had passed the 
prime of his life in the service of the 



220 THE LIFE OF 

country, that he may "be suffered to 
pass quietly to his grave ; " with a con- 
cluding observation that his fortune had 
not been improved by the emoluments 
of office. These ideas, rather more care- 
fully digested than any other portion of 
Washington's original draught, are, in the 
published address, omitted almost wholly, 
and this with the distinct approbation of 
Washington. It appears to have been 
thought that, in a paper calculated to 
descend to posterity, allusions to tempo- 
rary causes of irritation had better be 
suppressed. From this opinion we are 
compelled, with great diffidence, to dis- 
sent. We are under the impression that, 
though this part of Washington's draught, 
like the rest of it, (but less than the 
other portions,) was "in a rough state," 
the substance of it, with some softening 
of the language, which was never in- 
tended for publication, might have been 



^ 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 221 

retained. The opponents of Washington 
were not conciHated by its absence, and 
posterity has lost a lesson on the license 
and ferocity of party defamation, nearly 
as important as any contained in the ad- 
dress. It reflects new lustre on the mod- 
esty of Washington, that, in a matter 
personal to himself, he deferred to the 
judgment of his trusted friend ; but this 
judgment, in the present case, we con- 
ceive to have been erroneous. 

It may finally be observed that Wash- 
ington, with reference to this address, as 
to every act in life, aimed, with the en- 
tire sacrifice of self, to accomplish the 
desired good. He was accustomed, as a 
military chieftain, to employ daily the 
pens of active and intelligent secretaries, 
in communicating his plans, transmitting 
his commands, and generally carrying on 
his correspondence, without the thought 
that they were any the less the dictates 



222 THE LIFE OP 

of his own mind and judgment, because 
conveyed in the words of another. This 
habit he carried with him to the presi- 
dency, freely putting in requisition the 
aid of such official advisers and personal 
friends as in his opinion would best ena- 
ble him to perform the duty of the day. 
In doing this, he retained and exercised 
an independent judgment, and he adopted 
nothing furnished to him by others, which 
did not, after rigid scrutiny, stand the 
test of his own marvellous discernment 
and unerring wisdom. 

The vice-president, Mr. John Adams, 
was chosen his successor by a majority 
so slender* as to show that the country 
was now divided into two parties nearly 
equal. The tone of the public journals 
and the debates in Congress displayed an 
intensity of party feeling usually found 
under similar circumstances. Twelve mem- 

* For John Adams, 71 ; for Thomas Jefferson, 68. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 223 

bers of the House of Kepresentatives 
voted against the response of the House 
to the President's address to Congress 
at the opening of the last session, and a 
member from Virginia allowed himself to 
say, "that he did not regret the Presi- 
dent's retirement." On the 3d of March, 
the last day of his administration, he 
gave a farewell dinner to the foreign 
ministers, the president and vice-president 
elect, and other distinguished persons of 
both sexes. Much hilarity prevailed; till, 
toward the close of the entertainment, 
filling his glass, he said to the company, 
with a gracious smile, "Ladies and gen- 
tlemen, this is the last time I shall drink 
your health as a public man. I do it 
with sincerity, wishing you all possible 
happiness." Bishop White, in relating 
this anecdote, adds that there was an end 
of all gayety ; and that having directed 
his eye accidentally to Lady Listen, the 



224 THE LIFE OF 

wife of the British minister, he perceived 
the tears running down her cheeks. The 
next day General Washington attended 
the inauguration of President Adams, and 
received on that occasion the most strik- 
ing tokens of the pubhc respect and 
veneration. The crowd followed him with 
acclamations, from the chamber of the 
House of Kepresentatives, where the 
inaugural ceremonies of his successor 
were performed, to his own door. "There 
turning round, his countenance assumed 
a grave and almost melancholy expres- 
sion, his eyes were bathed in tears, his 
'^ emotions were too great for utterance, 
and only by his gestures could he indi- 
cate his thanks and convey his farewell 
blessing."* Similar demonstrations of re- 
spect were repeated at a splendid enter- 

* President W. A. Diier's recollections, in Irving's 
\ Washington, vol. v. p. 271. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 225 

tainment given to him in the evening 
by the citizens of Philadel23hia. 

The last official letter of General Wash- 
ington, as President of the United States, 
was addressed to the secretary of state, 
for the purpose of |)l9^cing on record a 
formal denunciation of the forgeries, to 
which allusion has been already made. 
This letter, after denying the truth of 
the facts which were alleged for the sake 
of giving a show of probability to this 
wretched fabrication, adds, with touching 
pathos, "As I cannot know how soon a 
more serious event may succeed to that 
w^hich will this day take place, I have 
thought it a duty which I owed to my- 
self, to my country, and to truth, now to 
detail the circumstances above recited ; 
and to add my solemn declaration that 
the letters herein described are a base 
forgery, and that I never saw or heard 
of them till they appeared in jDrint." 



226 THE LIFE OF 

Washington left PhilacleljDhia about the 
11th or 12th of March, 1797, accom- 
panied by Mrs. Washington, Miss Custis, 
and George Washington Lafayette and 
his tutor, and returned to Mount Yernon 
by the way of Baltimore, accompanied 
by the blessings of the people. 

Here it was his fondly cherished wish 
and hope to pass the remainder of his 
days in tranquil retirement. He was 
sixty-five years of age, a few days be- 
fore he retired from the presidency, and, 
as has been already mentioned, he did 
not consider himself as of a long-lived 
family. He had taken a definitive leave 
of political life ; he was fond of agricul- 
tural pursuits ; and his private affairs, 
much neglected during the eight years 
of his presidency, as they had also been 
while he was in the military service of 
the country, imperatively demanded his 
attention. In addition to this, the state 






GEORGE WASHINGTON. 227 

of parties was such as to dispose him 
more than ever to stand aloof. Extreme 
opinions, tending in opposite directions, 
more than ever divided the country; and 
the voice of moderation, always scorned 
by zealots, was, even if uttered by Wash- 
ington, less likely than ever to be heard. 
But his hopes of unmolested retire- 
ment, however ardently cherished, were 
doomed to be disappointed. The course 
pursued by the French Directory was 
such as to exliaust the patience alike of 
the government and people of the Unit- 
ed States. From the first arrival of M. 
Genet in this country, in 1793, although 
his successor did not come quite up to 
the standard of his indecorum, our diplo- 
matic relations with France had been of 
the most unsatisfactory kind. Our neu- 
trality in the war raging in Europe was, 
or was pretended to be, taken in ill 
part, and the negotiation of Jay's treaty 



228 THE LIFE OF 

gave new cause of ofifence. While the 
French ministers in this country scarcely 
kept within the bounds of civility toward 
the federal government^ our ministers to 
France were either not received, or re- 
ceived to be insulted, and our commerce 
was surrendered a hopeless prey to the 
public cruisers and the privateers of the 
Eepublic. 

It was necessary that outrages like 
these, of which the injury was great, and 
the shame worse than tlie injury, should 
at length have an end. The despatches 
of our envoys to France, detailing the 
affronts which had been put upon them 
and their country, were laid before Con- 
gress; and a just resentment was kindled 
in that body and throughout the Union. 
A suitable addition was voted to the 
naval and military force of the United 
States, and active preparations commenced 
for the impending conflict. With the first 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 229 

serious alarm of an approaching struggle 
all eyes were turned toward Washing- 
ton, as the necessary leader of the armies .v 
of the country. No other person was \ 
thought of for the chief command. Wash- '^ 
ington was early prepared for the call 
which could not fail to be made upon 
him, by the letters, of his confidential 
friends; and though sagaciously predict- V 
ing that the French Directory would not 
have the madness to push matters to a 
war, he avowed his purpose to obey the 
call of the country. After alluding to 
his occupations at Mount Yernon, he 
adds, in writing to Hamilton, "If a crisis 
should arrive when a sense of duty or a 
call from my country should become so 
imperious as to leave me no choice, I 
should prepare for relinquishment, and 
go with as much reluctance from my 
present peaceful abode, as I should go to 
the tomb of my ancestors." 



230 THE LIFE OF 

The unwelcome necessity presented it- 
self. Toward the close of June, 1798, let- 
ters were addressed to General Washing- 
ton, both by the president and the secre- 
tary of war, tendering to him informally 
the command of the army about to be 
organized. His replies were in unison 
with the sentiment just quoted, though 
filled with expressions of distress at the 
thoughts of leaving his retirement. Some 
delay took place in the transmission of 
the letters of the president and the sec- 
retary to Mount Vernon, and before the 
answers to them could be received at 
the seat of government, Washington had 
been nominated to the Senate by Presi- 
dent Adams, as Commander-in-chief of 
the armies of the United States, with the 
rank of lieutenant-general ; a title never 
conferred in any other instance in the 
United States, before or since, except in 
that of General Scott, on whom it was 



GEOEGE WASHINGTON. 231 

justly bestowed a few years since by 
Congress. 

General Washington accepted the com- 
mission, stipulating only that he should 
not take the field till the army was in 
a situation to need his presence, or the 
country was actually invaded. The Pres- 
ident, however, in the letter communi- 
cating his appointment, had declared that 
he stood in urgent need of his advice 
and assistance, and indeed "of his con- 
duct and direction of the war;" and 
Washington engaged in the organization 
of the army, with the spirit and energy 
of earlier days. Difficulties and embar- 
rassments of no ordinary kind presented 
themselves ; but the experience of two 
wars and two civil administrations had 
sufficiently taught him that these are, 
unhappily, at all times, the conditions of 
the public service. It may be stated, in 
general terms, that the main difficulties 



\ 



232 THE LIFE OF 

which attend the administration of a gov- 
ernment, in peace or in war, spring not 
so much from the necessary and intrinsic 
conditions of the public service, as from 
the selfishness and the passions of indi- 
viduals, and the madness of parties. 

There is a suggestion in a long and 
very interesting letter to the secretary 
of war, of the 4th of July, 1799, written 
in reply to the overtures above alluded 
to, which shows that the newly appointed 
Commander-in-chief was fully aware of 
the tremendous risks to which his mili- 
tary rej)utation might be exposed. He 
had evidently reflected on the possibil- 
ity that he might be brought into actual 
conflict with the youthful French chief- 
tain, who had already filled the world 
with the rumor of his military genius, 
in those campaigns of 1796 and 1797, to 
which Europe had seen no parallel since 
the days of Julius CaBsar. After some 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 233 

modest allusions to his advancing years^ 
"Washington^ in the letter referred to, 
says, " I express these ideas not from af- 
fectation, for I despise everything that 
carries that appearance, but from the be- 
lief, that as it is the fashion of the pres- 
ent day, set or adopted by the French, 
(with whom we are to contend,) and with 
great and astonishing success too, to ap- 
point generals of juvenile years to lead 
their armies, it might not be impossible 
that similar ideas and wishes might per- 
vade the minds of our citizens." It was 
his often repeated sentiment, that if the 
French attempted to gain a foothold in 
the country they must not be permitted 
to land; and his reference to their youth- 
ful commanders shows that he must have 
contemplated the probability that, in the 
event of a war, he should be brought in 
direct collision with the youngest and 
most successful of them, — the hero of v 



234 THE LIFE OF 

Arcole and Lodi. But the '^ man of des- 
tiny" had been led by his star in anoth- 
er direction^ and the man of Providence 
was not called to meet him in the field. 
Four days before the letter of Washing- 
ton, just cited, was written, Napoleon had 
landed at Alexandria. The Directory saw, 
before it was too late, the madness of 
their proceedings, and showed a willing- 
ness to retrace their steps, by an inti- 
mation that another mission from the 
United States would be honorably re- 
ceived. They might with propriety have 
been required by this government to take 
the initiative in the work of peace, and 
to send their own envoys to this country. 
But the United States were then a feeble 
power, and the administration was har- 
assed by dissensions among its political 
friends, and by a formidable opposition. 
President Adams probably adopted the 
more prudent course in closing with the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 235 

overture of the Directory. In the mean 
time the wheel of fortune was revolving : 
the bloody game of Egypt had been 
played out ; Napoleon had returned to 
France ; the Directory had sunk before 
him; and his brother Joseph^ on the 
30th of September, 1800, concluded with 
Messrs. Ellsworth, Davy, and Murray, a 
treaty of peace. 



236 THE LIFE OF 



CHAPTER X. 

Sudden Attack of Illness in December, 1799 — Rapid 
Progress and Fatal Termination of the Disease — Pub- 
lic Mourning — Emancipation of his Slaves by Will — 
Mount Vernon — Personal Appearance and Habits — 
Religious Opinions — General Views of his Character 
— Testimony of Lord Erskine, of Mr. Fox, of Lord 
Brougham, of Fontanes, and Guizot — His Military 
Character — Natural Temperament — Genius for the 
Conduct of Affairs — Final Estimate. 

The conclusion of a treaty of peace 
with France was a fulfilment of his an- 
ticipations, which Washington did not live 
to witness. His illustrious life was draw- 
ing unexpectedly to a close. December, 
1799, found him apparently in unusual 
health. His favorite nephew Lewis, writ- 
ing of him as he appeared to himself and 
a friend at that time, says, " The clear 
and healthy flush on his cheek and his 4 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 237 

sprightly manner brought the remark 
from both of us, that we had never seen 
the General look so well. I have some- 
times thought him decidedly the hand- 
somest man I ever saw." On the 10th 
of December, 1799, he comjoleted the 
draught of an elaborate plan for the 
management of his plantations, laying 
down the rotation of the crops, for a 
succession of years in advance. The 
morning of that day was clear and calm, 
but the afternoon was lowering. The 
next, the 11th of December, was a blus- 
tering, rainy day ; and at night, says the 
diary, " there was a large circle round 
the moon." 

The morning of the 12th w^as overcast. 
Washington's last letter was written that 
morning. It was to Hamilton, and prin- 
cipally on the subject of a military 
academy. At ten o'clock he rode out 
as usual over his farms. " About one 



238 THE LIFE OF 

o'clock," he remarks in his diary, "it 
began to snow, soon after to hail, and 
then turned to a settled, cold rain." He 
was, however, protected by an outside 
coat, and remained in the saddle five 
hours. 

On franking the letters brought to him 
for that purpose by his secretary, he said 
the weather was too bad to send a ser- 
vant to the post-office, which was at 
Alexandria, nine miles off! His secretary, 
Mr. Lear, from whose narration these 
minute details are derived, perceiving 
that snow was clinging to his hair be- 
hind, expressed his fears that his neck 
must be wet. He said it was not, that 
his greatcoat had kept him dry. He 
went to dinner, which had been kept 
waiting for him, without changing his 
dress, and in the evening appeared as 
well as usual. 

There were three inches of snow on 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 239 

the ground on the morning of Friday, 
the 13th, and it continued to fall. In 
consequence of this state of the weather, 
and of a sore throat of which he com- 
plained, evidently the result of his ex- 
posure the day before, Washington omit- 
ted his usual morning ride around his 
plantations. It cleared up, however, in 
the afternoon, and he went out to mark 
some trees, which were to be cut down 
for the improvement of the grounds, be- 
tween the river and the house. He had 
a hoarseness upon him at this time, which 
increased in the evening, but he made 
light of it. This was the last time that 
he left his house. 

The newspapers were brought from the 
posi>office in the evening, and he passed 
it in the parlor reading them. At nine 
o'clock Mrs. Washington went up to the 
room of her grand-daughter, Mrs. Lewis, 
(who was confined,) leaving the General 



240 THE LIFE OF 

and Mr. Lear together. He was very 
cheerful^ and when he found anything of 
interest read it aloud, as well as his 
hoarseness would permit. He requested 
Mr. Lear to read aloud the debates in the 
Virginia Assembly on the election of sen- 
ator and governor ; and discovered some 
feeling at the remarks of Mr. Madison, 
respecting Mr. Monroe. When he retired 
for the night, Mr. Lear advised him to 
take something for his cold. He an- 
swered, " No, you know I never take 
anything for a cold; let it go as it 
came." These were the last words, hope- 
ful of health, w^hich passed his lips. 

Saturda}^, the 14th, was the last day of 
his life ; it was long and full of suffer- 
ing. Between two and three o'clock in 
the morning, he awoke Mrs. Washing- 
ton, telling her he had had an ague-iit, 
and was very unwell. He could then 
scarcely speak, and breathed with diffi- 



» I 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 241 

culty. Thouglitful of others even in this 
emergency, he would not allow her to 
get up to call a servant, for fear of her 
taking cold. At daybreak, Caroline the 
servant came to make a fire, and was 
sent by her mistress to call Mr. Lear. 
Hastening to the General's chamber, Mr. 
Lear found him breathing with difficulty, 
and hardly able to articulate. He de- 
sired that his friend and physician. Dr. 
Craik, who lived in Alexandria, should 
be sent for, and that in the mean time 
Mr. Eawlins, one of the overseers, should 
bleed him. 

A soothing mixture was prepared for 
his throat, but he was unable to swallow 
the smallest quantity. The effort to do 
so caused distress, — almost suffocation. 
RawHns came soon after sunrise, and pre- 
pared to bleed him. When the arm was 
ready, Washington, perceiving that he was 
agitated, said, as plainly as he could, 

21 



24:2 THE LIFE OF 

" Don't be afraid ; " and when the vein 
was opened, observed, " The orifice is not 
large enough." The blood flowed pretty 
freely; but Mrs. Washington, fearful that 
bloodletting might not be proper, begged 
that much should not be taken. When 
Mr. Lear, however, was about to untie 
the ligature, the General raised his hand 
to prevent it, saying, "More, more." Mrs. 
Washington being still anxious lest he 
should suffer by the loss of blood, about 
half a pint only was taken. His throat 
was now bathed with sal volatile, and his 
feet placed in warm water; but without 
affording any relief When the hand of 
the attendant was gently applied to his 
throat, he said, " It is very sore." About 
eight o'clock he rose and was dressed; — 
but he found no relief from the change 
of position, and at ten returned to his 
bed. 

The alarm rapidly increasing, a physi- 



. i 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 243 

cian was sent for from Port Tobacco, on 
the other side of the river ; but between 
eight and nine o'clock Dr. Craik arrived. 
He immediately applied a blister to the 
throat, took more blood, and had a gar- 
gle prepared, which, however, the patient 
was wholly unable to use. Other reme- 
dial applications were attempted, but 
without effect. At eleven o'clock a third 
physician was sent for; and in the mean 
time the General was again bled. No 
benefit resulted from this treatment, and 
he remained unable to swallow. 

About three o'clock Drs. Dick and 
Brown arrived ; and after consultation, 
the sufferer was for the fourth time bled. 
The blood came thick and slow, but its 
loss produced no faintness. He was now 
able to swallow a little, and active medi- 
cines were administered, but without ben- 
eficial effect. 

About half-past four o'clock Mrs. Wash- 



244 THE LIFE OF 

ington was called to his bedside, and he 
requested her to go to his room and 
bring from his desk two wills, which she 
did. He looked at them, handed her one 
to burn as useless, and gave the other 
into her possession. 

After this, Mr. Lear returned to his 
bedside and took his hand. "I find," 
said the General, " I am going. My 
breath cannot last long. I believed from 
the first that the disorder would prove 
fatal. Do you arrange and record all 
my late military letters and papers. Ar- 
range my accounts and settle my books, 
and let Mr. Rawlins finish recording my 
other letters, which he has begun." He 
then asked Mr. Lear if he recollected 
anything which it was essential for him 
to do, as he had but a very short time 
to continue with them. Mr. Lear ex- 
pressed the hope that he was not so 
near his end. He observed, with a smile, 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 245 

that he certainly was, and that, as it was 
the debt which we must all pay, he 
looked to it with perfect resignation. 

In the course of the afternoon he was 
helped up, and after sitting about half 
an hour, desired to be undressed again, 
and put to bed. Perceiving his servant 
Christopher, who had been in attendance 
most of the day, to be standing, he 
thoughtfully told him to be seated. In 
the course of the afternoon, he suffered 
great pain from the difficulty of breath- 
ing, and desired frequently to change his 
position in bed. On these occasions his 
secretary lay by his side, in order to 
turn him with as much ease as possible. 
He was touched with these attentions, 
and said, "I am afraid I shall fatigue 
you too much; it is a debt we must pay 
to each other, and I hope, when you 
want aid of this kind, you will find it." 

About five o'clock in the afternoon. Dr. 



246 THE LIFE OF 

Craik came again into the room, and 
upon his going to the bedside the Gen- 
eral said to him, "Doctor, I die hard, but 
I am not afraid to go. I beheved from 
my first attack, that I should not sur- 
vive it. My breath cannot last long." 
Dr. Craik, his companion on the field of 
battle and his friend through life, per- 
ceiving that the last hour was near, 
pressed the hand of Washington, but 
could not speak, and left the bedside in 
speechless grief 

Between five and six, the three physi- 
cians approached his bedside. Dr. Craik 
asking if he could sit up in bed, he held 
out his hand and was raised up. He 
then said to the physicians, "I feel my- 
self going; I thank you for your atten- 
tions; but I pray you to take no more 
trouble about me. Let me go off* quiet- 
ly ; I cannot last long." He lay down 
again ; restless and suffering, but without 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 247 

complaining, frequently asking what hour 
it was. 

About eight o'clock the physicians 
again came into the room, and applied 
blisters and cataplasms to the legs. At 
ten o'clock he made several attempts to 
speak to Mr. Lear, but for some time 
without success. At length he said, '^I 
am fast going ; have me decently buried ; 
and do not let my body be put into the 
vault, till three days after I am dead." 
Mr. Lear, unable to speak, bowed assent. 
He then spoke again and said, "Do you 
understand me?" Mr. Lear replied that 
he did 3 and Washington said, " It is 
well." 

These were the last words which he 
uttered. Between ten and eleven o'clock, 
and about ten minutes before he died, 
his breathing became easier. He lay 
quietly, withdrew his hand from Mr. 
Lear's, and felt his own pulse. At this 



248 THE LIFE OF 

moment his countenance changed, his 
hand fell from his wrist, and he expired 
without a struggle. Mrs. Washington, 
who was seated at the foot of the bed, 
said in a collected voice, " Is he gone ? " 
A signal from Mr. Lear gave the answer. 
^^It is well," she said; "all is now over; 
I shall soon follow him ; I have no more 
trials to pass through." 

The disease of which General Washing- 
ton died was what is now technically 
called "acute laryngitis," a disease of 
very rare occurrence, and at that time 
not discriminated from other inflamma- 
tory diseases of the throat. The mourn- 
ful interest which attaches to the closing 
scenes of this illustrious career, has led 
the author of these pages to solicit from 
the venerable Dr. James Jackson, of Bos- 
ton, a professional memoir on the subject 
of his disease and the manner in which 
it was treated by his attendant physi- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 249 

cians* "During his whole illness/' says 
Mr. Lear, in the memorandum from 
which the foregoing account is taken 
almost verbatim^ "he spoke but seldom, 
and with great difficulty and distress; 
and in so low and broken a voice, as at 
times hardly to be understood. His pa- 
tience, fortitude, and resignation never 
forsook him for a moment. In all his 
distress he uttered not a sigh nor a com- 
plaint ; always endeavoring, from a sense 
of duty, as it appeared, to take what 
was offered to him, and to do as he was 
desired by his physician." 

On the 18th of December, followed by 
the sorrowing members of his family, by 
his friends, and neighbors, his mortal re- 
mains were deposited in the family vault 
at Mount Vernon, where they still rest. 
In consequence of the suddenness of 
the event, the news of his illness and 

* See Appendix, No. I. 



v^ 



250 THE LIFE OF 

of his death went out at once to the 
country ; and fell like the tidings of a 
domestic sorrow upon the hearts of the 
people. Appropriate resolutions, drawn by 
General Lee, one of the members from 
Virginia, were, in his absence, moved by 
his colleague, Mr. John Marshall, after- 
wards chief justice of the United States, 
expressive of the public sorrow at the 
loss of him, who was "first in war, first 
in j)eace, and first in the hearts of his 
fellow-citizens." The tributes of respect 
paid to his memory by Congress were 
repeated by the state legislatures, the 
courts, the municipal bodies, the seats of 
learning, and the associations of every 
description throughout the Union; and 
all the people mourned. 

We have already seen that a few hours 
before his death Washington sent to his 
study for two wills, which, when brought, 
were handed by him to Mrs. Washington, 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 251 

one to be destroyed, and the other pre- 
served by her. As he had kept them 
both to the close of his Hfe, it may be 
supposed that^ in conformity with his 
strictly methodical business habits, the 
two wills had been prepared by him, 
to meet respectively the contingencies of 
surviving his wife or dying before her. 
Although, as he frequently observes in 
his correspondence, his affairs had greatly 
suffered by his long absences from home, 
he left a large estate. He inherited a 
small property from his father; his elder 
brother bequeathed to him the estate of 
Mount Vernon; he received a large ac- 
cession of w^ealth with his wife ; and he 
made extensive purchases of unimproved 
lands, not only in Virginia but in several 
other states, some of which probably rose 
in value. A schedule appended to his 
will, of that part of his property which 
was to be sold for distribution among his 



252 THE LIFE OF 

general heirs, amounts^ as estimated by 
him, to something more than half a 
million of dollars. The larger part of 
his estate was specifically bequeathed, 
and must have more than equalled this 
amount. President Adams the elder, writ- 
ing to a friend in Massachusetts, at the 
time of Washington's election as Com- 
mander-in-chief, in 1775, speaks of him 
as "a gentleman of one of the finest for- 
tunes upon the continent." It is proba- 
ble that many of the unimproved lands, 
though possessing a speculative value, 
were unproductive; and of stocks and 
other property yielding a fixed in- 
come the amount appears to have been 
small. 

By the third item of the will, which 
was made about six months before his 
death. General Washington provided that, 
upon the decease of his wife, all the 
slaves held by him in his own right should 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 253 

receive their freedom. "To emancipate 
them during her hfe/' the will proceeds, 
"would, though earnestly desired by me, 
be attended with such insuperable diffi- 
culties, on account of their intermixture 
by marriage with the dower negroes, as 
to excite the most painful sensations, if 
not disagreeable consequences, to the lat- 
ter, while both descriptions are in the 
occupancy of the same proprietor, it not 
being in my power, under the tenure by 
which the dower negroes are held, to 
manumit them." For those emancipated, 
who from old age or bodily infirmity 
should be unable to support themselves, 
the will directs that a comfortable pro- 
vision of food and clothing while they 
lived should be made by his heirs. Those 
who were too young to support them- 
selves, and who had no parents able or 
willing to support them, were to be 
bound by the court till they were 



254 THE LIFE OF 

twenty-five years of age ; were to be 
taught to read and write by the masters 
to whom they were bound ; and brought 
up to some useful occupation. The will 
expressly forbids the sale or transporta- 
tion out of Virginia of any slave of 
whom he might die possessed, under any 
pretence whatsoever, and it enforces the 
general intentions of the testator in the 
following stringent terms : " And I do 
moreover most pointedly and solemnly 
enjoin upon my executors . . to see that 
this clause respecting slaves and every 
part thereof be religiously fulfilled at the 
epoch at which it is directed to take 
place, without evasion, neglect, or delay, 
after the crops which may then be in 
the ground are harvested, particularly as 
it respects the aged and infirm ; seeing 
that a regular and permanent fund be 
established for their support, as long as 
there are subjects requiring it ; not trust- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 255 

ing to the uncertain provision to be 
made by individuals." 

For his favorite servant Billj^ who at- 
tended him throughout the revolutionary 
war, a special provision was made in the 
following terms, and with characteristic 
precision : — 

"To my mulatto man William, call- 
ing himself William Lee, I give immedi- 
ate freedom, or if he should prefer it, 
(on account of the accidents which have 
befallen him, and which have rendered 
him incapable of walking, or of any active 
employment,) to remain in the situation 
he now is, it shall be optional in him to 
do so ; in either case, however, I allow 
him an annuity of thirty dollars, during 
his natural life, which shall be indepen- 
dent of the victuals and clothes he has 
been accustomed to receive, if he chooses 
the last alternative; but in full with his 
freedom if he prefers the first; and this 



256 THE LIFE OF 

I give him as a testimony of my sense 
of his attachment to me, and for his 
faithful services during the revolutionary 
war." 

The estate of Mount Yernon was be- 
queathed to his nephew, Bushrod Wash- 
ington, (the son of the General's younger 
and favorite brother, John A. Washing- 
ton,) afterwards one of the associate jus- 
tices of the supreme court of the United 
States. This bequest was made, in the 
words of the testator, "partly in consider- 
ation of an intimation to his deceased 
father, while we were bachelors, and he 
had kindly undertaken to superintend 
my estate, during my military services in 
the former war between Great Britahi 
and France, that, if I should fall therein, 
Mount Yernon, then less extensive in do- 
main than at present, should become his 
property." On the decease of Mr. Jus- 
tice Washington without children, it came 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 257 

into the possession of a nephew, who be- 
queathed it to his widow. Her son, John 
A. Washington, is the present incumbent. 
Two years smce, a contract was entered 
into between Mr. John A. Washington 
and "The Ladies' Mount Vernon Associa- 
tion of the Union," for the purchase of 
two hundred acres of the estate, includ- 
ing the mansion-house and the tomb, 
for two hundred thousand dollars. The 
greater part of the stipulated pmxhase- 
money has been already paid. 

We have, in the foregoing memoir, 
aimed to present the reader with a com- 
prehensive though necessarily greatly con- 
densed sketch of the principal events 
of the life of Washington, as the best 
means of conveying an adequate impres- 
sion of his character. As his active life 
covers very nearly half a century of the 
most important period in the history of 



258 THE LIFE OF 

the Anglo-American colonies and of the 
United States, and as he was himself in- 
timately associated with the events of 
greatest consequence while he was on 
the stage, it was manifestly necessary to 
pass rapidly over the ground. Much has 
of necessity been omitted, and much su- 
perficially narrated. The works of the 
standard authors mentioned in the pref- 
ace have furnished most of the materials 
of the foregoing narrative ; and their own 
words have been sometimes borrowed. 
The reader will perhaps wish that this 
had been done oftener. 

General Washington's personal appear- 
ance was in harmony with his character; 
it was a model of manly strength and 
beauty. He was about six feet two 
inches in height, and his person well- 
proportioned, — in the earlier part of life 
rather spare, and never too stout for 
active and graceful movement. The com- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 259 

plexion inclined to the florid ; the eyes 
were bkie and remarkably far apart 5 a 
profusion of brown hair was drawn back 
from the forehead^ highly powdered ac- 
cording to the fashion of the day^ and 
gathered in a bag behind. He was scru- 
pulously neat in his dress, and while 
in camp, though he habitually left his 
tent at sunrise, he was usually dressed 
for the day. His strength of arm, and 
his skill and grace as a horseman, have 
been already mentioned. His power of 
endurance was great, and there were oc- 
casions, as at the retreat from Long 
Island and the battle of Princeton, when 
he was scarcely out of his saddle for 
two days. Punctilious in his observ- 
ance of the courtesies of society as prac- 
tised in his day, he was accustomed, 
down to the period of his inauguration 
as President, at the balls given in his 
honor, to take part in a minuet or coun- 



260 THE LIFE OF 

try-dance. His diary uniformly records, 
sometimes with amusing exactness, the 
precise number of ladies present at the 
assemblies, at which he was received on 
his tours through the Union. His gen- 
eral manner in large societies, though 
eminently courteous, was marked by a 
certain military reserve. In smaller com- 
panies he was easy and affable, but not 
talkative. He was frequently cheered 
into gayety, at his fireside, by the con- 
tagious merriment of the young and 
happy, but often relapsed into a thought- 
ful mood, moving his lips, but uttering 
no audible sound. 

Washington's religious impressions were 
in harmony with the rest of his charac- 
ter, — deep, rational, and practical. On this 
topic, our remaining space admits of little 
more than a reference to the interesting 
article on this subject in the fourth sec- 
tion of the appendix to Mr. Sparks's 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 261 

twelfth volume. Washington was brought 
up in the Episcopal communion, and was 
a member of the vestry of two churches. 
He was at all times a regular attendant 
on public worship, and an occasional par- 
taker of the communion ; and is believed 
habitually to have begun the day with 
the reading of the Scriptures and prayer 
in his closet. His private correspondence, 
his general orders, and his public acts of 
all kinds contain devout recognitions of a 
divine Providence in the government of 
the world, and his whole life bears wit- 
ness to the influence of a prevailing 
sense of religious responsibility. In his 
last moments he breathed a truly pious 
spirit of resignation. In his own affect- 
ing words, he died "hard," but he w^as 
"not afraid to go." Though prevented, 
by the rapid progress of his disease, 
and the almost total obstruction of the 
vocal organs, from expressing his feel- 



262 



THE LIFE OF 



-^J 



ings, he manifested to the last the sub- 
mission of a sincere Christian to the will 
of the great Disposer. 

Posterity will not be left without a 
faithful representation of his person. The 
statue by Houdon in the capitol at Rich- 
mond, modelled at the age of fifty-three, 
is the accepted embodiment of his coun- 
tenance and form, and has been followed 
substantially by all his successors, in sev- 
eral monumental works of distinguished 
merit. A series of portraits by able ar- 
tists, from the age of thirty-eight onwards, 
delineate him under all the modifications 
of feature and person gradually induced 
by the advance of years.* 

In the final contemplation of his char- 
acter, we shall not hesitate to pronounce 



* An instructive enumeration and description of the 
portraits of Washington, preceded by an extremely judi- 
cious essay on his character, will be found in a mono- 
graph entitled Character and Portraits of Washington, 
by Henry T. Tuckerman, Esq. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 263 

Washington, of all men that have ever 

lived, THE GREATEST OF GOOD MEN AND THE V 

BEST OF GREAT MEN. Nor let this judg- 
ment be attributed to national partiality. 
In the year 1797, Mr. Eufus King, then 
the American minister in London, wrote 
to General Hamilton, " No one, who has 
not been in England, can have a just idea 
of the admiration expressed among all >- 
parties for General Washington. It is a 
common observation, that he is not only 
the most illustrious, but the most meri- 
torious character that has yet appeared." 
Lord Erskine, in writing to Washington 
about the same time, says, "You are the 
only human being for whom I ever felt 
an awful reverence." Mr. Charles James 
Fox remarks of him, that "A character 
of virtues, so happily tempered by one 
another and so wholly unalloyed by any 
vices, as that of Washington, is hardly to 
be found on the pages of history." Lord 



I 



264 THE LIFE OF 

Brougham, in his brilliaiit comparative 
sketch of Xapoleon and Washington, after 
a glowing picture of the Tirtues and 
vices of the great modem conqueror, ex- 
claims, -How grateful the relie£ which 
the fiiend of mankind, the lover of vir- 
tue, experiences, whem turning from the 
contemplation of such a character, his 
eye rests upon the greatest man of our 
own or of any age, the only one upon 
whom an epithet, so thoughtlessly lav- 
ished by men. may be innocently and 
justly bestowed I" Xor are these testi- 
monies confined t*^ Enorlishmen. in whom 
they might be supposed to be inspired, 
in some decree, bv An^rlo-Saxon sym- 
pathy. When the news of his death 
reached France, Fontanes, by direction 
of Xapoleon, delivered an eloquent eulo- 
gium, in which be declared him to be 
^a character worthy the best days of 
antiquity." M. Guizot, a far higher au- 



^TGS:^ 






T3F- 






ii-"*-^ — 



-^ J: 



^r^i^LTT 



266 THE LIFE OF 

of Julius Caesar. It is, to say the least, 
as certain that Julius Csesar, remaining 
in other respects what he was, could not 
have conducted the American Revolution 
to a successful issue, as that Washington 
could not have subdued Gaul, thrown an 
army into Great Britain, or gained the 
battle of Pharsalia. No one has ever 
denied to Washington the possession of 
the highest degree of physical and moral 
courage ; no one has ever accused him 
of missing an opportunity to strike a bold 
blow; no one has pointed out a want of 
vigor in the moment of action, or of 
forethought in the plans of his cam- 
paigns; in short, no one has alleged a 
fact, from which it can be made even 
probable that Napoleon or Csesar, work- 
ing with his means and on his field of 
action, could have wrought out greater 
or better results than he did, or that, if 
he had been placed on a field of action 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 267 

and with a command of means like theirs, 
he would have shown himself unequal to 
the position. 

There is^ in this respect, a great mis- 
take on the subject of Washington's tem- 
perament, which was naturallj sanguine. 
Traditionary accounts, which must, how- 
ever, be received with great caution as 
far as particular anecdotes are concerned, 
authorize the belief that, in early life at 
least, he habitually waged a strenuous war- 
fare with his own ardent temper. At all 
events, while he was placed in circum- 
stances, in both his wars, which forced 
upon him the Fabian policy, there were 
occasions, as we have seen in the narra- 
tion, when he seized the opportunity 
of making what, if it had failed, would 
have been called a rash movement. This 
showed him the possessor of an expan- 
sive capacity ; conforming patiently to 
straits, and keeping good heart in ad- 



268 THE LIFE OF 

versity, but ready at a moment of 
change to move with vigor and power. 
When we add to this an unquestioned 
fondness for the miUtary profession, who 
can doubt that, if he had been trained 
in the great wars of Europe, he would 
have proved himself equal to their se- 
verest tests? It is a remarkable fact, 
that from his youth upward he evinced 
military capacity beyond that of all the 
trained and experienced officers, with 
whom he was associated or brought in 
conflict. The neglect of his advice in 
1755 cost the veteran Braddock his army 
and his hfe, and threw the valley of the 
Ohio into the power of the French ; and 
all the skill and energy visible in the 
operations of General Forbes by which it 
was recovered in 1758, were infused into 
them by Washington. 

Akin to the argument against his mili- 
tary capacity, is the question whether, 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 269 

generally speaking, Washington was a man 
of genius, — a question not to be answered 
till that' word is explained. Dr. Johnson 
calls it, 'Hhat power which constitutes a 
poet," and in that acceptation Washington 
certainly was not endowed with it. As 
little did he possess the genius of the 
orator, the man of letters, the sculjDtor, 
the painter, the musician. The term is 
so habitually, not to say exclusively, ap- 
propriated to that native power which 
enables men to excel in science, litera- 
ture, and the fine arts, that those who 
are destitute of it in these departments 
are often declared to want it altogether. 
But there is a genius of political and 
military skill ; of social influence, of 
personal ascendency, of government; — 
a genius for practical utility; a moral 
genius of true heroism, of imselfish pa- 
triotism, and of stern public integrity, 
which is as strongly marked an endow- 



270 THE LIFE OF 

merit as those gifts of intellect, imagina- 
tion, and taste, which constitute the poet 
or the artist. Without adopting Yirgil's 
magnificent but scornful contrast between 
scientific and literary skill, on the one 
hand, and those masterful arts on the 
other, by which victories are gained and 
nations are governed, we must still ad- 
mit that the chieftain who, in spite of 
obstacles the most formidable, and vicissi- 
tudes the most distressing, conducts great 
wars to successful issues, — that the states- 
man who harmonizes angry parties in 
peace, skilfully moderates the counsels 
of constituent assemblies, and, without the 
resources of rhetoric but by influence 
mightier than authority, secures the for- 
mation and organization of governments, 
and in their administration establishes 
the model of official conduct for all fol- 
lowing time, is endowed with a divine 
principle of thought and action, as dis- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 271 

tinct in its kind as that of Demosthenes 
or Milton. It is the genius of a con- 
summate manhood. Analysis may de- 
scribe its manifestations in either case, 
but cannot define the ulterior principle. 
It is a final element of character. We 
may speak of prudence, punctuality, and 
self-control, of bravery and disinterested- 
ness, as we speak of an eye for color 
and a perception of the graceful in the 
painter, a sensibility to the sublime, the 
pathetic, and the beautiful in discourse ; 
but behind and above all these there 
must be a creative and animating princi- 
ple ; at least as much in character as in 
intellect or art. The qualities which per- 
tain to genius are not the whole of 
genius in the one case any more than 
the other. The arteries, the lungs, and 
the nerves are essential to life, but they 
are not life itself, — that higher something, 
which puts all the organic functions of 



272 LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

the frame in motion. In the possession 
of that mysterious quahty' of character^, 
manifested in a long life of unambitious 
service, which, called by whatever name, 
inspires the confidence, commands the 
respect, and Avins the affection of con- 
temporaries, and grows upon the admira- 
tion of successive generations, forming a 
standard to which the merit of other 
men is referred, and a Hving proof that 
pure patriotism is not a delusion, nor 
virtue an emjDty name, . no one of the 
sons of men has equalled. George Wash- 
ington. 



APPENDIX, 



No. I. 



MEMOIR ON TUE LAST SICKNESS OF GENERAL WASH- 
INGTON AND ITS TREATMENT BY THE ATTENDANT 
PHYSICIANS. BY JAMES JACKSON, M. D. 

The death of General Washington took place unexpect- 
edly after an illness of less than forty-eight hours. He was 
in his sixty-eighth year, but had not begun to show much of 
the infirmities of age. Under the exposures of the active 
period of his life, and again shortly after he had engaged in 
the heavy cares and responsibilities of office in 1789, he had 
undergone severe acute diseases ; but it does not appear that 
he had been suffering under any wearing or wasting chronic 
malady. His faithful biographer, Mr. Sparks, says of him, 
that " Since his retirement from the presidency, his health 
had been remarkably good ; and although age had not come 
without its infirmities, yet he was able to endure fatigue, and 
make exertions of body and mind with scarcely less ease and 
.activity than he had done in the prime of his strength."* 
Such being the case, the circumstances of his short disease, 
its character viewed scientifically, and the propriety of the 
treatment adopted by his physicians, have all been ascer- 

* Sparks's Life, of Washington^ p. 528. 



274 APPENDIX. 

tained and discussed ; and the remedies employed have been 
spoken of by some persons in terms of strong reprobation. 

We derive the only original account of his disease from 
a statement made out by Colonel Lear within twenty-four 
hours after his decease, with an attestation to the correctness 
of this account made at the time, " so far as he could recol- 
lect," by his excellent friend and physician, Dr. Craik. This 
account has the appearance of accuracy and fidelity. It is 
consistent with itself, and accords with what is now known 
to belong to the disease which cut short the days of this 
great man. 

On the 12th of December, 1799, he was abroad on his 
farms, on horseback, from 10 o'clock A. M. to 3 p. m. ; and 
"soon after he went out the weather became very bad, 
rain, hail, and snow falling alternately, with a cold wind." 
To the watchful eyes of his family there were no appearances 
of disease, though they looked for them, until the next day. 
He then complained of a sore throat, and it became evident 
that he had taken cold ; " he had a hoarseness, which increased 
in the evening ; but he made light of it." So far from feel- 
ing anything like serious illness on this 13th of December, he 
seems to have been kept from " riding out, as usual," only 
by a snow-storm. In the afternoon he went out of the house 
to look after some work, which was not of an urgent charac- 
ter. He passed his evening as usual, and did not seem to be 
aware that his cold was uncommonly severe. When Colonel 
Lear proposed at bedtime that he should take " something 
to remove his cold," he answered, " No, you know I never 
take anything for a cold ; let it go as it came." 

It was in this night that his sickness arrested his attention. 
He was taken with an ague, and, between two and three 
o'clock on Saturday morning, (the 14th,) he awoke Mi-s. 
Washington and told her that he was very unwell. He then 
had great difficulty in breathing, speaking, and swallowing. 



\ 



APPENDIX. - 275 

These are the symptoms which are characteristics, the es- 
sential characteristics, of his disease. They continued till 
his death, which took place between 10 and 11 o'clock in 
the following nioht. There seem to have been some hours 
during which he did not swallow anything, in consequence 
of the distress attending any effort to do it. It was also so 
difficult to speak, that he did that only when he thought it 
important, and as briefly as was consistent with his habitual 
care to be distinct and definite in his expressions. It was 
the breathing, however, which caused him most distress. In 
regard to that the patient cannot choose, as he can in re- 
spect to speaking and swallowing. The efforts which he was 
compelled to make in breathing were extremely distressing, 
and occasioned great restlessness ; — the more because his 
strongest efforts were insufficient to supply his lungs with as 
much air as his system had need of. It was from the inabil- 
ity to do this that death ensued. He was in fact strangu- 
lated by the closure of the windpipe, as much as if a tight 
cord had been twisted around his neck. His intellect re- 
mained unclouded, and it is needless to say that he showed 
to the last those strong and great characteristics of mind and 
heart, by which his whole life had been marked. 

What was this disease which cut down a strong man in so 
short a time ? It was such as has cut down very many, no 
doubt, in times past ; but it is a rare disease. It had not, at 
the time of Washington's death, been clearly described, so as 
to be distinguished from other diseases about the throat. It 
is now well known under the name of acute laryngitis; — 
inflammation of the larynx, — the upper part of the wind- 
pipe. It was about 1810 that this morbid affection was first 
brought into notice and distinctly described by Dr. Matthew 
Baillie, of London, confessedly, while he lived, at the head of 
his profession in that great city. He published two cases 
seen by himself, both of them within a short period, both in 



276 APPENDIX. 

medical men, and one of them a very dear friend of his. 
To these he added a third case reported to him by a practi- 
tioner in London, which was evidently hke the other two. 
He ascertained the morbid changes, by which these persons 
had been suddenly deprived of life, by examinations after 
death. It was ascertained by these examinations, as it has 
been by many made since in similar cases, that the disease 
consists in an inflammation in the mucous membrane of the 
whole larynx, including the epiglottis ; but that this inflam- 
mation is not limited to the mucous membrane. It extends 
to the cellular membrane subjacent to the other, indeed to all 
the soft parts, including the muscles ; and perhaps, in some 
degree, to the cartilages. From these morbid changes the 
epiglottis is disabled from the free and ready motion essential 
to its office, which is that of guarding the windpipe from 
the admission of substances passing through the pharynx. 
Hence one of the difficulties in swallowing, probably the 
greatest. In such a state the attempt to swallow any sub- 
stance, liquid or solid, would be attended by an instinctive 
effort of the epiglottis to shut up the larynx, as it always 
does in health during the act of swallowing. But this in- 
stinctive effort must cost great pain; and it is an effort 
which could not succeed in the most severe state of the dis- 
ease. Thus the principal difficulty in swallowing is ex- 
plained. Another difficulty in swallowing arises from the 
state of the pharynx. The inflammation of the larynx pass- 
ing over its posterior part, in some if not all cases, spreads 
to the pharynx, and disables that part from performing its 
office in carrying down the liquids or solids brought to it. 

Just below the entrance to the larynx we find the delicate 
structures belonging to the organ of the voice, and here is 
the narrowest part of the air tube. In these parts, a com- 
mon acute inflammation of their mucous membrane will cause 
soreness and hoarseness: but when the disease extends to 



APPENDIX. 277 

the subjacent cellular membrane, so that all these parts are 
thickened by the distention of the small bloodvessels, and 
the more if there take place an effusion of any fluid into 
this cellular membrane, it is seen at once how these soft 
parts must be swollen. Now this swelling occasions a diffi- 
culty, if not an impossibility, of motion in the delicate parts 
belonging to the organ of the voice, and accounts for the 
difficulty and at length the impossibihty of speaking. At 
the same time we see how the passage of the air is impeded, 
and at last entirely obstructed, producing the difficulty of 
breathing and at length the strangulation. 

Thus this disease, so suddenly destructive of life, is among 
the most simple in its nature. One readily understands that 
his fingers may be inflamed, that is, become red, swollen, in- 
durated in all the soft parts, and painful, to such a degree as 
to make motion in them very difficult and at length impossi- 
ble. But all this may take place without interfering with 
functions important to fife. But let the organs, by which 
the voice is formed and through which the air must be 
passed for the supply of the lungs, — the organs through 
which the breath of life must have an open road, — let these 
organs be swollen and rigid so as to block up this passage, 
and we readily comprehend that life may be arrested in 
young or old, in the strong as well as in the feeble, in a very 
short space of time. It follows that the only question in a 
disease of this kind, as it occurs in adults, is whether we can 
prevent or remove the fatal obstruction which has been de- 
scribed as characteristic of this disease. 

There are, however, some further remarks to be made on 
the disease, before discussing the treatment of it. Any one 
conversant with the subject will see at once how much acute 
laryngitis resembles the common affection which we all 
know as a sore throat from a cold. Though the words a 
cold are employed with reference to any disease which is 



278 APPENDIX. 

thouglit to arise from an exposure to a change of tempera- 
ture, or to cold and damp weather, they are most commonly 
used in reference to an attack in the nose, or in the wind- 
pipe. These are called colds in the head, or colds in the 
+hroat. The cold in the throat is marked by a sense of 
slight soreness in that part, (especially felt in deglutition and 
in coughing), and by hoarseness in the voice. Some cough 
soon follows and presently an expectoration of matter, at 
first watery and afterwards thick and glutinous, and more or 
less opaque. In these cases there is an inflammation of the 
mucous membrane of the larynx. The disease may begin 
in the nasal passages, when it is commonly called a cold in 
the head, or a nasal catarrh ; and this does most frequently 
take place first ; but whichever part is affected first, the in- 
flammation may extend from this to the other. Further, 
when the larynx is affected, the inflammation may also pass 
downward to the bronchi, which are the ramifications of the 
windpipe in the lungs. Then the disease gets the name of 
pulmonary catarrh, or bronchitis. 

To one who understands the above statement, it will be 
plain that the cold in the throat, when there take place 
soreness in the throat, hoarseness, a slight difficulty in deglu- 
tition, and more or less cough, — in other words, a hoarse sore 
throaty is the same thing as the acute laryngitis. It is assur- 
edly the same thing, except in degree. In the disease first 
described, the laryngitis^ the inflammation is more severe, 
and it is not confined to the mucous membrane, but extends 
to the other tissues. The mucous membrane may be called 
an internal skin ; and like the skin it is connected with 
other parts by a cellular membrane. Now if the skin be 
inflamed in its external surface only, in one man, and in 
another an inflammation of the skin should pass tlirough it 
into the subjacent cellular membrane, the swelling would be 
much more in this last case than in the first. The greater 



APPENDIX. 279 

swelling in tlie second case would be attended with more 
general affection of the system than would occur in the first 
one. So far the difference between the common affection 
of the larynx, in ordinary colds, and that in the severe dis- 
ease under consideration, is illustrated by the supposed in- 
flammation in the skin in the two men. But there is one 
great difference. The swelling of the skin is not productive 
of any serious inconvenience ; not so in the larynx. That is 
the tube through which the air passes to the lungs in respi- 
ration, and in one part the passage is very narrow. In this 
part the swelling must occupy the calibre of the tube ; in 
fatal cases it fills up the air passage ; and the effect of this 
is the same as if a cord were tied very tightly around the 
neck. As the passage is filHng up, the air passes with more 
and more difficulty, and at last it cannot pass at all. Even 
this, however, does not state quite the whole. In the last 
hours of life, the lungs do not get air enough to produce the 
requisite change in the blood ; and likewise the carbonic acid 
gas, which is an excretion from the blood, and is usually dis- 
charged at once from the lungs, is retained in some measure 
and acts as a poison. From this imperfect renewal of the 
blood, if we may use the expression, arises the livid counte- 
nance in the last hours ; and under this state of the blood 
every part of the body is constantly losing its vigor. Thus, 
before the larynx is absolutely blocked up, the muscles of 
respiration become incapable of the effort requisite to ex- 
pand the thorax, and death ensues, although there may 
be a very small passage still left open at the last moment 
of fife. 

We are prepared now to consider the treatment proper in 
acute laryngitis, in connection with that adopted in the case 
under consideration. It has been thought by many persons, 
medical and non-medical, that General Washington was not 
treated judiciously; and some, perhaps, believe that by a 



280 APPENDIX. 

different treatment his life might have been preserved. 
Sixty years have passed since his decease, and the disease, 
which was fatal to him, is understood now much more per- 
fectly than it was in 1799. To what result have we ar- 
rived? Has any treatment proved to be more successful 
than that adopted in his case ? He was bled, he was blis- 
tered, and calomel and antimony were administered inter- 
nally. Whether these remedies were employed early enough, 
and whether to too great an extent, or not sufficiently, are 
questions to which we will return presently. 

What was the treatment adopted by Dr. Baillie in the 
cases of his medical friends? He directed bleeding, both 
general and local, and his patients not only agreed with him, 
but, being medical men, directed it for themselves in his ab- 
sence. This happened at a period comparatively near to 
that of Washington's case. 

What do the best teachers say at the present day ? To 
answer this question fully aud accurately would require 
great research. One need not, however, hesitate to say, 
generally, that they recommend bleeding and blistering. In 
addition, the English teachers advise the use of mercurials 
carried to the point of salivation, and our own did the same 
until very lately. Some of them, perhaps, do it now. Some, 
if not many, would add antimony and opium to the calomel, 
or other preparations of mercury. 

We believe that the lectures by Dr. Watson of London 
are received, as good authority, by as many persons who 
speak the English language, as the work of any writer of 
our time on the theory and practice of medicine. In the 
last edition of his lectures he advises bleeding freely at 
an early period of acute laryngitis, with the qualifications 
which every discreet and experienced practitioner would 
assent to. So far, then, it would seem that the treatment 
adopted by Dr. Craik and his medical coadjutors is the same, 



APPENDIX. 281 

which has been, and is now directed by physicians of the 
first standing. 

Let us look into this matter somewhat, and see whether 
bloodletting in acute laryngitis appears to be a rational 
practice. To what cause is the danger to life to be attribut- 
ed in this disease ? The answer has already been given. 
The danger arises from the filling up of a part of the wind- 
pipe. In what way, or by what material is the windpipe 
filled up ? By an extra quantity of blood in the small ves- 
sels of the part, similar to what most persons may have seen 
in a violent inflammation of the external surface of the eye. 
By this blood in the first instance, and in part, is the tube 
filled up; but further, by the efiusion under the mucous 
membrane of the larynx of a watery Hquid, called serum, or 
serous fluid. When a man is bled largely he usually be- 
comes pale. This happens because the small vessels of the 
external surface contract under the loss of blood, and the 
skin is seen to be white, or sallow, according to the complex- 
ion of the individual. If, in the disease under consideration, 
the small bloodvessels in the morbid part will contract as 
those of the skin do, after the abstraction of blood, we may 
hope for relief, as long as that contraction is maintained. 
Not only so ; it will be found that if this contraction takes 
place in the diseased part, the efiusion of serous fluid is 
more readily absorbed than it would otherwise be. 

It must be confessed that the effect, here described, on the 
small bloodvessels in the morbid part, is not certain to take 
place in consequence of the loss of blood. The success of 
the measure depends mainly on the period of the disease, 
at which the bleeding takes place. The chance of success 
is great in the very beginning of the inflammatory process ; 
but it is less, the later the period at which the remedy is 
employed. There is not, however, any other measure by 
which effectual relief is so hkely to be produced as by blood- 



282 APPENDIX. 

letting. If anything else can be equally effectual, in so short 
a space of time, it must be some local applications to the part 
afiected. There are cases of disease in the larynx, where 
nitrate of silver and other articles may perhaps be applied to 
the parts affected, with great benefit. But in the irritable 
state of the part in question, in this acute disease, such ap- 
plications must be attended with very great difficulty, and 
apparently with great hazard. The success of this treatment 
in cases of ulceration in the mucous membrane of the larynx, 
in a chi'onic disease, does not prove what would happen in 
the acute disease under consideration. 

But there is a difficulty which ordinarily attends the bleed- 
ing in this disease, to which may be attributed the failure in 
the largest proportion of cases, in which it has been tried. 
It is that the disease usually commences under the familiar 
form of a common cold in the throat, so that at first no alarm 
is felt. Nor ought there to be an alarm in such a case. It 
has been shown above that such an inflammation as occurs 
in a common hoarse cold may suddenly increase in impor- 
tance by extending from the mucous membrane or tissue, to 
the surrounding tissues, especially to the subjacent cellular 
membrane. Then comes the tumefaction, which, acting me- 
chanically, blocks up the passage of the air into the lungs. It 
is in this first stage, before the fatal extension of the inflam- 
mation has occurred, that the disease might be the most 
easily arrested. But who Avould advise the active treatment 
requisite for this purpose in every case of a hoarse cold, 
which is the first stage ? In every such case the severe dis- 
ease may ensue. But what is the chance that it will ensue ? 
A very large proportion of persons, probably three quarters 
of the community among us, have such a cold once a year, 
and not a few have such an attack twice or three times in a 
year; but the change into the severe disease, called acute 
laryngitis, is among the most rare occurrences. It does not 



APPENDIX. 283 

take place in one case out of a million. But if it happened in 
one case in a hundred, it would not be justifiable to resort to 
a severe treatment in each one of a hundred cases, in order 
to save one of them from the fatal change. There is no 
doubt that every discreet man would choose to incur the 
slight hazard of the severe disease, rather than to resort to a 
copious bleeding every time he had a hoarse sore throat. 
Washington was evidently familiar with a cold in his throat 
in his sixty-eighth year, as other men are. He probably had 
never suspected the possible issue of such a cold. But if he 
had been told that the chance of such an issue was one in a 
million, or even one in a hundred, would he have consented 
to a copious bleeding ? We think not. 

Here we see the real difficulty. At the time when the 
danger is manifested, the disease is not strictly new ; it has 
not just commenced. In looking over the histories of cases 
of acute laryngitis we find that the disease, under the form 
of a hoarse cold, has existed from a few hours to a few days, 
before it arrives at the state when danger to life is suspected. 
It cannot be said that the bleeding, at that stage of the dis- 
ease, can be relied on, as it might have been in the very 
commencement. Yet this remedy, even then, affords a chance 
of relief, and the more when the disease has not remained 
long in the first stage. In Washington's case the first stage 
was of short duration. Bleeding was resorted to early, by 
his own direction. But that bleeding was nominal. His 
wife objected to it, because the patient was old, and the 
bleeding had not been directed by a physician. We must 
give her the credit of exercising a wise caution. Of course 
she did not understand the nature of the disease ; she did 
not suspect how rapidly it was pressing forward to a fatal 
termination. Even the delay of the three or four hours 
which had already passed away since he waked her up in 
':he night, was a most serious loss. When Dr. Craik reached 



284 APPENDIX. 

him some hours afterwards, he prescribed a new venesection. 
He was right ; it is in such circumstances that the anceps re- 
medium is justifiable. What would medical critics, what 
would posterity have said, if this good doctor, when such a 
patient was in his hands, in imminent danger from an affec- 
tion which was manifestly due to inflammation, had folded 
his arms, and said, " There is no possibility of giving rehef ; 
but you may let him inhale the vapor from some herb tea " ? 

Although bloodletting is the great remedy, there are other 
modes of treatment which may be employed in aid of it, or 
without it. Calomel and antimony, usually with the addition 
of opium, are thought by many physicians to be proper arti- 
cles for the relief of this laryngitis. Colonel Lear says that 
calomel and antimony were given to General Washington, 
but he does not say in what doses, nor whether more than 
once. There is not any reason to believe that they were 
given in large doses; though I think Dr. Craik and his coad- 
jutors have been reproached on this score. In 1799 the use 
of mercurials in inflammatory diseases was very rare, I be- 
lieve, in Great Britain, though it was very common in this 
country. At the present day the reverse is true. At least 
in New England the practice is now relied on much less 
than in old England. Fashions change, it must be acknowl- 
edged, in medicine as in other things. Probably the result, 
at the end of another fifty years, will be that mercurials will 
not be administered in either country as freely as they have 
been heretofore, but that they will not be abandoned alto- 
gether. 

It would not be well to go further into the subject on this 
occasion. We have considered the bloodletting more fully 
perhaps than was quite necessary, but it has been to defend 
the reputation of Dr. Craik and his medical friends, who 
we think did as well, at least, as any of their critics would 
have done in the like case. We must acknowledge an un- 



APPENDIX. 285 

willingness not to think "well of Dr. Craik, who was the per- 
sonal friend of Washington through his life. 

Passing by some other modes of treatment of acute laryn- 
gitis, we should not omit to notice one, on which much reliance 
is placed at the present day, when it becomes obvious that all 
other remedies are ineffectual. This consists in an opening 
into the trachea, below the diseased part. In this way life 
may be prolonged while a chance is afforded for the sub- 
sidence of the disease by a natural process, after which the 
wound may be allowed to heal up. This practice has been 
resorted to with success in various instances of obstructions 
in the windpipe, and especially of late in croup. In this 
disease of children and in the acute laryngitis of adults, it is 
important that the surgical operation should be performed 
before the vital powers have been too much exhausted by 
the painful and wearing struggles for life. 

But it is time to bring this note to a close. On some 
points the writer has gone into a minute statement of 
particulars, and into a discussion of principles, as to the 
pathology and as to the therapeutics. But this has been 
done only so far as seemed to him necessary to make the 
subject understood by non-professional men ; not with any 
pretence to bring into view all that relates to the disease or 
its treatment. If he seem to have lingered on the subject 
too long, it will be remembered that the interest which is 
inspired by every circumstance in the life of Washington, 
attaches, with melancholy intensity, to the disease by which 
it was suddenly brought to a close. 

Boston, March, 1860. 



286 APPENDIX. 



No. 11. 

[The following is the official inventory of the personal prop- 
erty at Mount Vernon, taken by the sworn appraisers 
after the decease of General Washington. It includes, as 
will be perceived, a list of the books in his library. Some 
portions of the inventory, containing the appraisal of the 
articles in most of the bedrooms and in the various do- 
mestic offices, and of the implements of husbandry and 
stock on the farms, are omitted for want of room. The 
columns are not footed up in consequence of these omis- 
sions, but the sum total on the last page includes the 
entire amount of the inventory.] 

AN INVENTORY OF ARTICLES AT MOUNT VERNON, WITH 
THEIR APPRAISED VALUE ANNEXED. 

In the Niw Room. 

$ cts. 

2 Large Looking-glasses 200 00 

4 Silver-plated Lamps, &c. GO 00 

6 Mahogany Knife Cases 100 00 

2 Sideboards, on each of which is an Image and 

China Flower-pot • 160 00 

27 Mahogany Chairs at $10 270 00 

2 Candle Stands 40 00 

2 Fire-screens 40 00 

2 Elegant Lustres 120 00 

2 Large gilt-framed Pictures, representing the Fall 

of Puvers ^ ICO 00 

4 do. representing Watercourses, &c. 240 00 

1 do. small Likeness of General Washington 100 00 

1 do. Louis XVL 50 00 

2 do. Prints, Death of Montgomery ] 00 00 

2 do. Battle of Bunker's Hill 100 00 



APPENDIX. 287 



$ cts. 

2 Large gilt-framed Pictures, Dead Soldier 45 00 

1 Likeness of St. John 15 00 

1 do. Virgin Mary 15 00 

4 Small Prints (one under each Lamp) 8 00 

1 Painting, Moonlight 60 00 

5 China Jars 100 00 

All the Images ^ • 100 00 

1 Mat ^ 10 00 

Window Curtains • 100 00 

2 Hound Stools • • • 6 00 

Shovel, Tongs, Poker, and Fender 20 00 

In the Little Parlor. 

1 Looking-glass 30 00 

1 Tea-table ■ 8 00 

1 Settee 15 00 

10 Windsor Chairs 20 00 

2 Prints representing Storms at Sea 30 00 

1 do. A Sea-fight between Paul Jones of the Bon 

Homme Richard and Captain Pearson of the 

Serapis • 10 00 

1 do. The distressed Situation of Quebec, &c. 15 00 

2 do. : one The Whale Fishery of Davis's Straits 

and the other of the Greenlands 20 00 

1 Likeness of General Washington in an oval 

Frame 4 00 

1 do. Doctor Franklin 4 00 

1 do. Lafayette 4 00 

1 Gilt Frame of wrought Work containing Chick- 
ens in a Basket 20 00 

1 do. Likeness of a Deer 5 00 

1 Painted Likeness of an Aloe ' 2 00 

6 Others of different Paintings 12 00 



288 APPENDIX. 

$ cts. 

1 Carpet 10 00 

2 Window Curtains 5 00 

Andirons, Tongs, and Fender 6 00 

In the Front Parlor. 

1 Elegant Looking-glass 60 00 

1 Tea-table - 15 00 

1 Sofa 70 00 

1 1 Mahogany Chairs 99 00 

3 Lamps, two with Mirrors 40 00 

5 China Flower-pots 50 00 

1 Gilt Frame, Marquis Lafayette and Family 100 00 

1 do. General Washington 50 00 

1 do. Mrs. Washington « 50 00 

1 do. Mr. Lear 80 00 

1 do. Mrs. Law 70 00 

1 do. Mrs. Washington's two Children 50 00 

1 do. Mrs. Washington's Daughter when grown- • • • 10 00 
1 Small oval Frame (gilt) containing the Like- 
ness of Washington Custis 10 00 

1 do. George W. Lafayette 10 00 

1 do. General AVashington 10 00 

1 do. Mrs. Washington 10 00 

1 Gilt square Frame, the Likeness of Miss Custis • • 10 00 

1 do. emblematic of General Washington 10 00 

2 Window Curtains •* 16 00 

1 Carpet 80 00 

Andirons, Shovel, Tongs, &c. 8 00 

In the Dining-Room. 

1 Oval Looking-glass 15 00 

1 Mahogany Sideboard 23 00 

1 Tea-table 2 00 



APPENDIX. 289 



$ cts. 

2 Dining-tables 30 00 

1 Large Case 10 00 

2 Knife Cases • 6 00 

10 Mahogany Chairs 50 00 

1 Large gilt Frame, Print, The Death of the late 

Earl of Chatham 50 00 

1 do. General Wolfe 15 00 

1 do. Penn's Treaty with Indians 15 00 

1 do. RIttenhouse 5 00 

1 do. Doctor Frankhn 10 00 

1 do. General Washington 7 00 

1 do. General Greene 7 00 

1 do. America • 6 00 

1 do. General Lafayette, or Conclusion of the late 

War 7 00 

1 do. General Wayne 7 00 

1 do. Washington Family of Mount Vernon 20 00 

1 do. Alfred visiting his Noblemen 9 00 

1 do. Alfred dividing his Loaf with the Pilgrim • • • • 9 Of 

1 Carpet 2 00 

Window Curtains • 2 00 

Water Pitcher 50 

Andirons, Shovel, Tongs, and Fender 8 00 

In the Bedroom. 

1 Looking-glass 10 00 

1 Small Table • 5 00 

1 Bed, Bedstead, and Mattress 50 00 

4 Mahogany or Walnut Chairs • • • • ■ 8 00 

1 Large gilt Frame containing A Battle fought by 

Cavahy " 30 00 

Window Curtains and Blinds 1 50 

1 Carpet 5 00 

25 



290 APPENDIX. 



$ cts. 

Andirons, Shovel, Tongs, and Fender 4 00 

In the Passage. 

14 Mahogany Chairs 70 00 

1 Print, Diana dec'd by Venus 5 00 

1 do. Adonis carried off by Venus 5 00 

• 1 do. The dancing Shepherds 5 00 

1 do. Morning 5 00 

1 do. Evening 8 00 

1 do. View of the River Po in Italy 8 00 

■' 1 do. Constantine's Arch 8 00 

1 do. General Washington 25 00 

1 do. Key of Bastile with its Representation 10 00 

1 Thermometer 5 00 

4 Images over the Door 20 00 

1 Spy-glass 5 00 

In the Closet under the Staircase. 

1 Fire-screen 2 00 

1 Machine to scrape Shoes on 2 00 

In the Piazza. 

30 Windsor Chairs 30 00 

From the Foot of the Staircase to the Second Stairs. 

1 Gilt Frame, Print, Musical Shepherds 10 00 

1 do. Moonlight 10 00 

1 do. Thunder-storm 10 00 

1 do. Battle of Bunker Hill 5 00 

1 do. Death of Montgomery 15 00 

In the Passage on the Second Floor. 

1 Looking-o;lass 4 00 



APPENDIX. 291 

In the First Room on the Second Floor. 

S cts. 

1 Dressing-table 8 00 

6 Mahogany Chairs • • 15 00 

Bed, Bedstead, and Curtains 75 00 

Window Curtains • 1 00 

1 Large Looking-glass 15 00 

1 Print, Gainsborough Forest 8 00 

1 do. Nymphs Bathing 8 00 

1 do. Village 6 00 

1 do. Storm 7 00 

1 Carpet 5 00 

Wash-basin and Pitcher 1 00 

Andirons, Shovel, Tongs, and Fender 5 00 

In the Second Room, 

1 Arm-chair 6 00 

Bedstead, Bed, Curtains, and Window Curtains- • 70 00 

1 Looking-glass ■ 15 00 

1 Dressing-table 8 00 

Likeness of General Lafayette 50 00 

1 Carpet 10 00 

4 Chairs 6 00 

Wash-basin and Pitcher 1 00 

Andirons, Shovel, Tongs, and Fender 4 00 

In the Third Room. 

6 Mahogany Chairs 24 00 

1 Bed, Bedstead, and Curtains 85 00 

Window Curtains 1 00 

Chest of Drawers 15 00 

1 Looking-glass 6 00 

1 Wash-stand, Basin, and Pitcher 4 00 

Carpet 7 00 



292 APPENDIX. 

$ cts 

1 Print, The Young Herdsman 5 50 

1 do. The Flight 5 50 

1 do. Morning 5 50 

1 do. Evening 5 50 

Andirons, Shovel, Tongs, and Fender 4 50 

In the Fourth Room. 

5 Mahogany Chairs 16 00 

1 Bed, Bedstead, and Curtains 77 50 

Window Curtains 2 00 

1 Close Chair 6 00 

1 Pine Dressing-table 1 00 

Carpet 10 00 

1 Laro;e Looking-glass 15 00 

1 Print, Sun Rising 6 00 

1 do. Sun Setting 6 00 

1 do. Cupid's Pastime • • • - 6 00 

1 do. Cottage 6 00 

1 do. Herdsman 6 00 

Wash-basin and Pitcher 1 50 

Andirons, Shovel, Tongs, and Fender 4 50 

In the Small Room. 

1 Dressing-table 3 00 

1 Wash-stand 4 00 

3 Windsor Chairs 1 50 

1 Bed and Bedstead 40 00 

1 Dressing-glass 3 00 

Glass and China in the China Closet and that 
Up-stairs, and also that in the Cellar 850 00 



APPENDIX. 293 



In the Room Mrs. Washington noto keeps. 

S cts. 

1 Bedstead and Mattress 50 00 

1 Oval Looking-glass 10 00 

1 Fender 2 00 

Andirons, Shovel, and Tongs 2 00 

3 Chairs •• 3 00 

1 Table 3 00 

1 Carpet 3 00 

In Mrs. Washington's old Room. 

1 Bed, Bedstead, and Curtains 70 00 

1 Glass 2 00 

1 Dressing-table 6 00 

1 Writing-table 25 00 

1 Writing Chair 2 00 

1 Easy Chair 10 00 

2 Mahogany Chairs 4 00 

A Timepiece = 100 00 

1 Chest of Drawers 30 00 

6 Paintings of Mrs. Washington's Family 60 00 

5 Small Drawings 2 50 

1 Picture, Countess of Huntingdon 75 

1 do. General Knox 1 00 

1 do. A Parson 1 00 

5 Small Pictures r 2 00 

^ y^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

In the Study. 

7 Swords and Blades 120 00 

4 Canes 40 00 

7 Guns 35 00 

11 Spy-glasses 110 00 



294 APPENDIX. 

1$ cts. 

1 Tin Canister of Drawing-paper 50 

Trumbull's Prints 36 00 

1 Case of Surveying Instruments 10 00 

1 Travelling Ink Case 3 00 

1 Globe 5 00 

1 Chest of Tools 15 00 

1 Box containing two Paper Moulds 25 00 

1 Picture 3 00 

1 Bureau = 7 00 

1 Dressing-table 40 00 

1 Tambour Secretary 80 00 

1 Walnut Table 5 00 

1 Copying-press 30 00 

1 Compass, StaiF, and two Chains 30 00 

1 Case of Dentist's Instruments 10 00 

1 Old Copying-press 11 00 

2 Sets Money Weights 20 00 

1 Telescope 50 00 

1 Box of Paints, &c. 16 00 

1 Bust of General Washington in Plaster, from 

the Life 100 00 

1 do. Marble 50 00 

1 Profile in Plaster 25 00 

2 Seals with Ivory Handles 8 00 

1 Pocket Compass 50 

1 Brass Level 10 00 

1 Japan Box containing a Mason's Apron 40 00 

1 Small Case containing three Straw Kings ; one 

Farmer's Luncheon-box 1 71 

1 Silk Sash (Military) 20 00 

1 Velvet Housing for a Saddle and Holsters, trim- 
med with Silver Lace 5 00 

1 Piece of Oil-cloth containing Orders of JMasonry • 50 00 



APPENDIX. 295 



S cts. 

Some Indian Presents 5 00 

1 Bust in Plaster of Paul Jones 20 00 

2 Pine Writing-tables 4 00 

1 Circular Chair 20 00 

1 Box of Military Figures 2 00, 

1 Brass Model Cannon 15 00 

2 Brass Candlesticks 2 00 

2 Horsewhips 4 00 

1 Pair of Steel Pistols 50 00 

1 Copper Wash-basin 75 

1 Chest and its Contents, &c. 100 00 

1 Arm Chair 2 00 

1 Writing-desk and Apparatus 5 00 

1 (Green) Field-book 25 

Balloon Flag 1 00 

Tongs, Shovel, and Fender 1 00 

A Painted Likeness, Lawrence Washington • • • • 10 00 

1 Oval Looking-glass 2 00 

3 Pair of Pistols 50 00 

In the Iron Chest. 

Stock of the U. S. ■{ Dr. deferred 1873 ) .,.^^ ( 6,246 00 

( 3 per cent. 2946 |-^Wj 

25 Shares Stock of the Bank of Alexandria 5,000 00 

24 do. do. Potomac Company (@ £100 stg.) 10,666 00 

Cash ' 254 70 

1 Set of Shoe and Knee Buckles, Paste in 

Gold 250 00 

1 Pair of Shoe and Knee Buckles, Silver 5 00 

2 Gold Cincinnati Eagles 30 00 

1 Diamond do. 387 00 

1 Gold Watch, Chain, two Seals, and a Key • • • 175 00 

1 Compass in Brass Case 50 



296 APPENDIX. 

S cts. 
1 Gold Box presented by the Corporation of 

New York 100 00 

5 Shares of James River Stock @ SlOO 500 00 

170 Shares of Coknnbla Bank Stock @ $40 6,800 00 

1 Large Gold Medal of General Washington ■ • • 150 00 

1 Gold Medal of St. Patrick Society 8 00 

1 Ancient Medal (another Metal) 2 00 

11 Medals in a Case - 50 00 

1 Large Medal of Paul Jones 4 00 

3 Other Metal Medals 1 00 

1 Brass Engraving of the Arms of the U. States* 10 00 

1 Pocket Compass 5 00 

1 Case of Instruments, Parallel Rule, &c. 17 50 

1 Pocket-book 5 00 

Library. 

American Encyclopaedia, 18 vols. 4to. 150 00 

Skombrand's Dictionary, 1 do. 7 50 

Memoir of a Map Hindostan, 1 do. 4to. 8 00 

Young's Travels, 1 do. 4 00 

Johnson's Dictionary, 2 do. 10 00 

Guthrie's Geography, 2 do. 20 00 

Elements of Rigging, (?) 2 do. 20 00 

Principles of Taxation, 1 do. 2 00 

Luzac's Oration, 1 do. 1 00 

Mawe's Gardener, 1 do. 4 00 

Jeffries's Aerial Voyage, 1 do. 1 00 

Beacon Hill, 1 do. 1 00 

Memoirs of the American Academy (one of which 

is a Pamphlet), 2 do. 3 00 

Duhamel's Husbandry, 1 do. 2 00 

Langley on Gardening, 1 do. 2 00 

Price's Carpenter, 1 do. 1 00 



APPENDIX. 297 



$ cts. 

Count de Grasse, 1 vol. 1 00 

Miller's Gardener's Dictionary, 1 do. 5 00 

Gibson's Diseases of Horses, 1 do. 3 00 

Runiford's Essays 3 00 

Miller's Tracts, 1 vol. 8vo. 2 00 

Rowley's Works, 4 do. 12 00 

Robertson's Charles V., 4 do. 16 00 

Gordon's History of America, 4 do. 12 00 

Gibbon's Roman Empire, 6 do. 18 00 

Stanyan's Grecian History, 2 do. 2 00 

Adam's Rome, 2 do. 4 00 

Anderson's Institute, 1 do. 2 00 

Robertson's America, 2 do. • • • • • 4 00 

Ossian's Poems, 1 do. 2 00 

Humphreys's Works, 1 do. 3 00 

King of Prussia's Works, 13 do. 26 00 

Gillies's Frederick, 1 do. 1 50 

Goldsmith's Natural History, 8 do. • 12 00 

Locke on Understanding, 2 do. 3 00 

Shipley's Works, 2 do. 4 00 

BufFon's Natural History abridged, 2 do. 4 00 

Ramsay's History, 2 do. 2 00 

The Bee (thirteenth volume missing), 18 do. 34 00 

Sully's Memoirs, 6 do. 9 00 

Fletcher's Appeal, 1 do. 1 00 

History of Spain, 2 do. 8vo. 3 00 

Jortin's Sermons, 2 do. 2 00 

Chapman on Education, 1 do. 75 

Smith's Wealth of Nations, 3 do. 4 50 

History of Louisiana, 2 do. 2 00 

Warren's Poems, 1 do. 50 

Junius's Letters, 1 do. 1 00 

City Addresses, 1 do. 1 OC 



298 APPENDIX. 

$ cts. 

Conquest of Canaan, 1 vol. 1 00 

Shakspeare's Works, 1 do. 2 00 

Antidote to Deism, 2 do. 1 00 

Memoirs of 2500, 1 do. 75 

Forest's Voyage, 1 do. 4to. 3 00 

Don Quixote, 4 do. 12 00 

Ferguson's Roman History, 3 do. 12 00 

Watson's History of Philip H., 1 do. 4 00 

Barclay's Apology, 1 do. 3 00 

Uniform of the Forces of Great Britain in 1742, 1 do. 20 00 

Otway's Art of War, 1 do. 3 00 

Political States of Europe, 8 do. 8vo. 20 00 

Winchester's Lectures, 4 do. 6 00 

Principles of Hydraulics, 2 do. 2 00 

Leigh on Opium, 1 do. 8vo. 75 

Heath's Memoirs, 1 do. 2 00 

American Museum, 10 do. 15 00 

Vertot's Rome, 2 do. 2 00 

Harte's Gustavus, 2 do. 2 00 

Moore's Navigation, 1 do. 2 00 

Graham on Education, 1 do. 2 00 

History of the Mission among the Indians in North 

America, 1 do. 2 00 

French Constitution, 1 do. 1 50 

Winthrop's Journal, 1 do. 1 50 

American Magazine, 1 do. 8vo. 4 00 

Watts's Views, 1 do. 4to. 20 00 

History of Marshal Turenne, 2 do. 8vo. 2 00 

Ramsay's Revolution of South Carolina, 2 do. 2 00 

History of Quadrupeds, 1 do. 1 50 

Carver's Travels, 1 do. 1 50 

Moore's Italy, 2 do. 3 00 

Moore's France, 2 do. 3 00 



APPENDIX. 299 



$ cts. 

Chastellux's Travels, 1 vol. 1 00 

Chastellux's Voyages, 1 do. 1 00 

Volney's Travels, 2 do. 3 00 

Volney's Ruins, 1 do. 1 50 

"VVarville's Voyage, in French, 3 do. 3 00 

Warville on the Relation of France to the U. States 1 00 

Miscellanies, 1 vol. 4to. 1 00 

Fulton on Small Canals and Iron Bridges, 1 do. • • • • 3 00 

Liberty, a Poem, 1 do. 50 

Hazard's Collection of State Papers, 2 do 5 00 

Young's Travels, 2 do. 4 00 

West's Discourse, 1 do. 2 00 

A Statement of the Representation of England 

and Wales, 1 do. • 50 

Miscellanies, 2 do. 2 00 

PoUtical Pieces, 1 do. 1 00 

Treaties, 1 do. 50 

Annual Register for 1781, 1 do. 8vo. 75 

Masonic Constitution, 1 do. 4to. 1 00 

Smith's Constitutions, 1 do. 50 

Preston's Poems, 2 do. 1 00 

History of the United States, 1796, 1 do. Svo. 50 

Parliamentary Debates, 12 do. 6 00 

Mair's Book-keeping, 1 do. 1 50 

Miscellanies, 1 do. 1 00 

Proceedings of the East India Company, 1 do. fol. • • 4 00 

Ladies' Magazine, 2 do. Svo. 3 00 

Parliamentary Register, 7 do. 3 50 

Pryor's Documents, 2 do. 2 00 

Remembrancer, 6 do. 3 00 

European Magazine, 2 do. 3 00 

Columbian do., 5 do. 10 00 

American do., 1 do. 2 00 



300 APPENDIX. 



$ cts. 

New York Magazine, 1 vol. 2 00 

Christian's do., 1 do. 2 00 

Walker on Magnetism, 1 do. 50 

Monroe's View of the Executive, 1 do. 75 

Massachusetts Magazine, 2 do. 4 00 

A Five Minutes' Answer to Paine's Letter to 

General Washington, 1 do. 1 00 

Political Tracts, 1 do. 2 00 

Proceedings on Parliamentary Reform, 1 do. 2 00 

Poems on Various Subjects, 1 do. 50 

Plays, &c., 1 do. 75 

Annual Register, 3 do. 4 50 

Botanico-Medical Dissertation, 1 do. 25 

Oracle of Liberty, 1 do. 25 

Cadmus, 1 do. 1 00 

Doctrine of Projectiles, 1 do. 50 

Patricius the Utilist, 1 do. 8vo. 50 

Ahiman Rezon, 1 do. 1 50 

Sharp on the Prophecies, 1 do. 75 

Minto on Planets, 1 do. 50 

Sharp on the English Tongue, 1 do. 50 

Sharp on Liinitation of Slavery, 1 do. 1 50 

Sharp on the People's Rights, 1 do. 1 00 

Sharp's Remarks, 1 do. 50 

National Defence, 1 do. 50 

Sharp's Free Militia, 1 do. 50 

Sharp on Congressional Courts, 1 do. 75 

Ahiman Rezon, 1 do. • 1 00 

Vision of Columbus, 1 do. 50 

Wilson's Lectures, 1 do. 75 

Miscellanies, 1 do. - 1 00 

The Contrast, A Comedy, 1 do. 75 

Sharp, An Appendix on Slavery, 1 do. 50 



APPENDIX. 301 



35 cts. 

Muir's Trial, 1 vol 75 

End of Time, 1 do 75 

Erskine's View of the War, 1 do 1 00 

Political Magazine, 3 do 4 50 

The Law of Nature, 1 do. 12mo 75 

Washington's Legacy, 1 do 1 00 

Political Tracts, 1 do. 8vo 1 00 

America, 1 do 1 00 

Proofs of a Conspiracy, 1 do 1 50 

Mackintosh's Defence, 1 do 1 00 

Miscellanies, 1 do 1 00 

Mirabeau, 1 do 1 00 

Virginia Journal, 1 do. 4to 1 00 

Miscellanies, 1 do. 8vo 1 25 

Poems, &c., 1 do. 4to 1 00 

Morse's Geography, 1 do. 8vo 2 00 

Messages, &c., 1 do 1 00 

History of Ireland, 2 do 2 00 

Harte's Works, 1 do 1 25 

Pohtical Pamphlets, 1 do 1 00 

Burns's Poems, 1 do 2 00 

Political Tracts, 1 do 75 

Miscellanies, 1 do 1 00 

Higgins on Cements, 1 do 1 00 

Repository, 2 do 3 00 

Reign of George III., 1 do 1 00 

Political Tracts, 1 do 1 25 

Tar Water, 1 do 75 

Minot's History, 1 do 75 

Mease on the Bite of a Mad Dog, 1 do 1 75 

Political Tracts, 1 do 1 00 

Reports, 1 do 1 50 

Revolution of France, 1 do 1 00 



!02 APPENDIX. 



$ cts 

Essay on Property, 1 vol 1 00 

Sir Henry Clinton's Narrative, 1 do 1 00 

Lord North's Administration, 1 do 1 50 

Lloyd's Rhapsody, 1 do 1 00 

Tracts, 1 do 1 00 

Inland Navigation, 1 do 1 00 

Chesterfield's Letters, 1 do 150 

Smith's Constitutions, 1 do. 4to 1 00 

Morse's Geography, 2 do. 8vo 4 00 

Belknap's American Biography, 2 do 3 00 

Belknap's History of New Hampshire, 1 do 2 00 

Do. do. do., 3 do 5 00 

Minot's History of Massachusetts, 1 do. . . , 2 00 

Jenkinson's Collection of Treaties, 3 do 6 00 

District of Maine, 1 do. 8vo 1 50 

Gulliver's Travels, 2 do 1 50 

Tracts on Slavery, 1 do 1 00 

Priestley's Evidences, 1 do 1 00 

Life of Buncle, 2 do 3 00 

Webster's Essays, 1 do 1 50 

Bartram's Travels, 1 do 2 00 

Bossu's Travels, 2 do 3 00 

Situation of America, 1 do 1 00 

Jefferson's Notes, 1 do 1 50 

Coxe's View, 1 do 1 50 

Ossian's Poems, 1 do 1 50 

Adams on Globes, 1 do 2 00 

Pike's Arithmetic, 1 do 2 00 

Barnaby's Sermons and Travels, 1 do 1 00 

Champion on Commerce, 1 do 1 00 

Brown's Bible, 1 do. fol 15 00 

Bishop Wilson's Bible, 3 do 60 00 

Bishop Wilson's Works, 1 do 15 00 



APPENDIX. 303 



$ cts. 

Laws of New York, 2 vols. 12 00 

Laws of Virginia, 2 do. 3 00 

Middleton's Architecture, 1 do. 3 00 

Miller's Naval Architecture, 1 do. 4 00 

The Senator's Remembrancer, 1 do. 3 00 

The Origin of the Tribes or Nations in America, 1 

do. 8vo. 75 

A Treatise on the Principles of Commerce between 

Nations, 1 do. 50 

Annual Register, 1 do. • 50 

General Washington's Letters, 2 do. 4 00 

Insurrection, 1 do. 50 

American Remembrancer, 3 do. 1 50 

Epistles for the Ladies, 1 do. 50 

Discourses upon Common Prayer, 1 do. < • • 25 

The Trial of the Seven Bishops, 1 do. 8vo. 50 

Lebroune's Surveyor, 1 do. fol. 1 00 

Sharp's Sermons, 1 do. 8vo. 50 

Muir's Discourses, 1 do. 75 

Emblems Divine and Moral, 1 do. 1 00 

Yorick's Sermons, 2 do. • • 1 00 

D'lvernois on Agriculture, Colonies, and Com- 
merce, 1 do. 75 

Pocket Dictionary, 1 do. 25 

Prayer Book, 1 do. 1 50 

Royal English Grammar, 1 do. 25 

Principles of Trade compared, 1 do. 50 

Dr. Morse's Sermon, 1 do. 50 

Duche's Sermon, 1 775, 1 do. 50 

Sermons, 1 do. 50 

Embassy to China, 1 do. 1 00 

Warren's Poems, 1 do. 1 00 

Sermons, 1 do. 25 



304 APPENDIX. 



$ cts, 

Humphrey Clinker, 1 vol. 25 

Poems, 1 do. 50 

Swift's Works, 1 do. 50 

History of a Foundling, (3d vol. wanting,) 3 do. • • • • 1 50 

Adventures of Telemaclius, 2 do. 2 00 

Nature Displayed, 1 do. 1 00 

Solyman and Almenia, 1 do. 50 

Plays, 1 do. 50 

The High German Doctor, 1 do. 25 

Benezet's Discourse, 1 do. 25 

Life and Death of the Earl of Rochester, 1 do. 25 

Journal of the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, 9 do. fol. 27 00 

Laws of the United States, 7 do. - 28 00 

Revised Laws of Virginia, 1 do. 10 00 

Acts of Virginia Assembly, 5 do. 1 00 

Cruttwell's Concordance, 1 do. 5 00 

Dallas's Reports, 1 do. 8vo. 3 00 

Swift's System, 2 do. 3 00 

Journals of the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, 3 do. 6 00 

State Papers, 1 do. 2 00 

Burn's Justice, 4 do. 12 00 

Marten's Law of Nations, 1 do. 1 50 

Views of the British Customs, 1 do. 1 00 

Debates of Congress, 3 do. 4 50 

Journals of Congress, 13 do. 40 00 

Laws of the United States, 3 do. 6 00 

Kirby's Reports, 1 do. 2 00 

Virginia Justice, 1 do. 1 00 

Virginia Laws, 1 do. 1 00 

Dogge on Criminal Law, 3 do. =■ 4 50 

Laws of the United States, 2 do. 4 00 



APPENDIX. 305 



$ cts. 

Debates of the State of Massacliusetts on the Con- 
stitution, 1 vol. 50 

Sharp on the Law of Nature, 1 do. 25 

Sharp on the Law of Retribution, 1 do. 25 

Sharp on Libels and Juries, 1 do. 25 

Acts of Congress, 1 do. 75 

Debates of the Convention of Virginia, 1 do. 50 

The Landlord's Law, 1 do. 12mo. 25 

Attorney's Pocket-book, 2 do. 8vo. 1 00 

President's Messages, 1 do. 2 00 

Jay's Treaty, 1 do. 50 

Debates of the Convention of Massachusetts, 1 do. • • 50 

Law against Bankrupts, 1 do. 50 

Debates in the Convention of Pennsylvania, 1 do. • • 50 

Debates in the Convention of Virginia, 1 do. 50 

Debates in the House of Representatives of the 
United States with respect to their power on 

Treaties, 1 do. 50 

Sundry Pamphlets containing Messages from the 

President to Congress, &c. 1 00 

Orations, 1 vol. 4to. 50 

Gospel News, 1 do. 8vo. 1 00 

Mosaical Creation, 1 do. 8vo. 75 

Original and Present State of Man, 1 do. 50 

Sermons, 2 do. 1 50 

Political Sermons, 3 do. • - 2 25 

Miscellanies, 1 do. 75 

Ray on the Wisdom of God in Creation, 1 do. 1 00 

Orations, 1 do. 75 

Medical Tracts, 2 do. 1 50 

Masonic Sermons, 1 do. 50 

Miscellanies, 1 do. 75 

Backus's History, 1 do. 1 00 



306 APPENDIX. 



$ cts. 

Sick Man Visited, 1 vol. 75 

State of Man, 1 do. 75 

Churchill's Sermon, 1 do. 75 

Account of the Protestant Church, 1 do. 75 

Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1 do. 1 00 

Dodington's Diary, 1 do. 1 00 

Daveis' Cavalry, 1 do. 1 00 

Simms's Military Course, 1 do. • 1 00 

Gentleman's Magazine, 3 do. 4 50 

Library Catalogue, 1 do. 1 50 

Transactions of the Royal Humane Society, 1 do. • • • 3 00 

Zimmermann's Survey, 1 do. 75 

History of Barbary, 1 do. 75 

Anson's Voyage round the World, 1 do. • • • • 1 00 

Horseman and Farrier, 1 do. 1 00 

Gordon's Geography, 1 do. 1 00 

Kentucky, 1 do. 75 

History of Virginia, 1 do. 1 00 

American Revolution, 1 do. 1 00 

Cincinnati, 1 do. 1 00 

Political Tracts, 1 do. 75 

Remarks on the Encroachments of the River 

Thames, 1 do. 50 

Sharp on Crown Law, 1 do. 8vo. 50 

Common Sense, &c., 1 do. 75 

Hardy's Tables, 1 do. 75 

Beauties of Sterne, 1 do. 75 

Peregrine Pickle, 3 do. 1 50 

M'Fingal, 1 do. 50 

Memoirs of the noted Buckhorse, 2 do. 1 00 

Odyssey, (Pope's translation of Homer,) 5 do. 3 00 

Miscellanies, 3 do. 1 50 

Fitzosborne's Letters, 1 do. 50 



APPENDIX. 307 

$ eta. 

Voltaire's Letters, 1 vol. ^^ 

Guardian, 2 do. I ^^ 

Beauties of Swift, 1 do. ^^ 

The Gleaner, 3 do. 3 00 

Miscellanies, 2 do. 1 50 

Lee's Memoirs, 1 do. 1 00 

The Universalist, 1 do. 1 00 

Chesterfield's Letters, 4 do. 2 00 

Louis XV., 4 do. 3 00 

Bentham's Panoption, 3 do. 2 00 

Reason, &c., 1 do. 50 

Tour through Great Britain, 4 do. 3 00 

Female Fortune-Hunter, 3 do. 1 00 

The Supposed Daughter, 3 do. 1 50 

Gil Bias, 4 do. ^ 3 00 

Columbian Grammar, 1 do. • • • 50 

Frazier's Assistant, 1 do. 50 

Review of Cromwell's Life, 1 do. 75 

Seneca's Morals, 1 do. 75 

Travels of Cyrus, 1 do. 75 

Miscellanies, 1 do. 75 

Charles XII., 1 do. 50 

Emma Corbet, (the 2d vol. wanting,) 2 do. 1 00 

Pope's Works, 6 do. 12mo. 2 00 

Foresters, 1 do. 50 

Adams's Defence, 1 do. 8vo. 75 

Butler's Hudibras, 1 do. 1 00 

Spectator, 6 do. 3 00 

New Crusoe, 1 do. 75 

Philadelphia Gazette, 1 do. fol. • • 10 00 

Pennsylvania Packet, 2 do. 12 00 

Gazette of the United States, 10 do. 40 00 

Atlas to Guthrie's Geography, 1 do. 40 00 



308 APPENDIX. 



$ cts. 

Moll's Atlas, 1 vol. 10 00 

West India Atlas, 1 do. 20 00 

General Geographer, 1 do. 30 00 

Atlas of North America, 1 do. 10 00 

Manoeuvres, 1 do. 8vo. 1 00 

MiHtary Instructions, 1 do. 50 

Count Saxe's Plan for New-modelling the French 

Army, 1 do. 50 

Military Discipline, 1 do. 4to. 2 00 

Prussian Evolutions, 1 do. 1 50 

Code of Military Standing Resolutions, 2 do. 4 00 

Field Engineer, 1 do. 8vo. 1 50 

Army List, 1 do. 75 

Prussian Evolutions, 1 do. 4to. 2 00 

Leblond's Engineer, 2 do. 8vo. • 3 00 

Muller on Fortification, 1 do. 2 00 

Essays on Field Artillery, by Anderson, 1 do. 75 

A System of Camp Discipline, 1 do. 2 00 

Essay on the Art of War, 1 do. 1 00 

Treatise of Military Discipline, 1 do. 1 50 

List of Military Officers, British and Irish in 1 777, 1 do. 50 

Vallancey on Fortification, 1 do. 1 50 

Muller on Artillery, 1 do. 1 50 

Muller on Fortification, 1 do. 2 00 

Militia, 1 do. 8vo. 1 00 

American Atlas, 1 do. fol. 4 00 

Steuben's Regulations, 1 do. 8vo. 75 

Traite de Cavalerle, 1 do. fol. 6 00 

Truxtun on Latitude and Longitude, 1 do. 1 50 

Ordinances of the King, 1 do. 2 00 

Magnetic Atlas, 1 do. 1 00 

Roads through England, 1 do. 8vo. 1 00 

Carey's War Atlas, 1 vol. fol. 75 



APPENDIX. 309 



$ cts 

Caller's Survey of Roads, 1 do. 8vo. 50 

Military Institutions for Officers, 1 do. 50 

Norfolk Exercise, 1 do. • • 25 

Advice of Officers of the British Army, 1 do. 25 

Webb's Treatise on the Appointments of the Army, 

1 do. 25 

Acts of the Parliament respecting Militia, 1 do. 25 

The Partisan, 1 do. 50 

Anderson on Artillery, (in French,) 1 do. 25 

List of Officers under Sir William Howe in Amer- 
ica, 1 do. 25 

The Military Guide, 1 do. 50 

The Duties of Soldiers in General, 3 do. 1 50 

Young's Tour, 2 do. • • • • 3 00 

Young on Agriculture, (17 vols, full bound, 8 half 

bound, and 1 pamphlet,) 26 do. 50 00 

Anderson on Agriculture, (1 vol. full bound, the 

others in boards,) 4 do. 8 00 

Lisle's Observations on Husbandry, 2 do. 3 00 

Museum Rusticum, 6 do. 10 00 

Marshall's Rural Ornament, 2 do. 4 00 

Barlow's Husbandry, 2 do. • 3 00 

Kennedy on Gardening, 2 do. 2 00 

Hale on Husbandry, 4 do. 6 00 

Sentimental Magazine, 5 do. 10 00 

Price on the Picturesque, 2 do. 4 00 

Agriculture, 2 do. • < • • 2 00 

Miller's Gardener's Calendar, 1 do. 2 00 

Rural Economy, 1 do. 8vo. 1 00 

Agricultural Inquiries, 1 do. 1 00 

Maxwell's Practical Husbandry, 1 do. 2 00 

Boswell on Meadows, 1 do. 1 00 



310 APPENDIX. 



$ cts. 

Gentleman Farmer, 1 vol. • 1 50 

Practical Farmer, 1 do. 1 50 

Millwright and Miller's Guide, 1 do. 2 00 

Bordley on Husbandry, 1 do. 2 25 

Sketches and Inquiries, 1 do. 2 00 

Farmer's Complete Guide, 1 do. 1 00 

The Solitary, or Carthusian Gardener, 1 do. 1 00 

Homer's Iliad by Pope, (first two vols, wanting,) 4 do. 2 00 

Don Quixote, 4 do. 3 00 

Federalist, 2 do. " - 3 00 

The World Displayed, (13th vol. wanting,) 19 do. 

12mo. 9 50 

Search's Essays, 2 do. 8vo. 2 00 

Freneau's Poems, 1 do. 1 00 

Cattle Doctor, 1 do. 75 

Stephens's Directory, 1 do. 50 

New System of* Agriculture, 1 do. 50 

Columbus's Discovery, 1 do. 25 

Moore's Travels, 5 do. 4 00 

Agricultural Society of New York, 1 do. 4to. 2 00 

Transactions of the Agricultural Society of New 

York, 1 do. 1 00 

Annals of Agriculture, 1 do. 2 00 

Dundonald's Connection between Agriculture and 

Chemistry, 1 do. 1 00 

Labors in Husbandry, 1 do. 1 00 

Account of different Kind of Sheep, 1 do. 8vo. 50 

The Hothouse Gardener, 1 do. 1 50 

Historical Memoirs of Frederick II., 3 do. 1 00 

Treatise of Peat Moss, 1 do. 50 

Treatise on Bogs and Swampy Grounds, 1 do. 75 

Complete Farmer, 1 do. fol. 6 00 



APPENDIX. 311 



$ cts. 
Pamphlets, — 

Reports of the National Agricultural Society 

of Great Britain, 100 Nos. 4to. 25 00 

Massachusetts Magazine, 41 do. 8vo. 6 00 

New York Magazine, 38 do. 6 00 

London Magazine, 18 do. 3 00 

Political Magazine, 8 do. 1 00 

Universal Asylum, 9 do. 1 50 

Universal Magazine, 11 do. 1 50 

Country Magazine, 15 do. 2 00 

Monthly and Critical Reviews, 11 do. 2 00 

Gentleman's Magazine, 8 do. 1 00 

Congressional Register, 9 do. 1 00 

Miscellaneous Magazine, 27 do. 3 00 

Tom Paine's Rights of Man, 43 do. 15 00 

Miscellaneous Magazine, 27 do. 4 00 

Books, — 

Hazard's Collection of State Papers, 2 vols. 

4to. 5 00 

Morse's American Gazetteer, 1 do. 8vo. 2 00 

Annals of Agriculture, (20 and 21,) 2 do. 3 00 

On the American Revolution, 1 do. 1 50 

15 Pamphlets, Annals of Agriculture, 2 50 

Judge Peters on Plaster of Paris, 1 vol. 1 50 

Belknap's Biography, 1 do. 1 50 

American Remembrancer, 1 do. 50 

Federalist, 2 do. 1 50 

A Pamphlet, The Debate of Parliament on the Ar- 
ticles of Peace, 1 do. 25 

History of the American War, in 1 7 pamphlets 150 

Miscellaneous Pamphlets, 26 Nos. 2 00 

Washington, a Poem .2 00 

Alfieri, Bruto Primo, Italian Tragedy 1 00 



312 



APPENDIX. 



S cts. 
Fragment of Politics and Literature, by Mandril- 
Ion, (in French,) 1 vol. 8vo. • • • • > 75 

Revolution of France and Geneva, (in French,) 2 do. 2 00 
History of the Administration of the Finances of 

the French Republic, 1 do. 50 

History of the French Administration, 1 do. 75 

The Social Compact, (in French,) 1 do. 25 

Chastellux's Travels in North America, (in French,) 

2 do. 8 vo. 1 50 

1 Pamphlet, Of the French Revolution at Geneva • • 25 

America Delivered, a Poem, (in French,) 2 vols. • • • 1 50 

Sinclair's Statistics, (in French,) 1 do. 1 00 

The Works of Monsieur Chamousset, (in French,) 

2 do. • 4 00 

Letters of American Farmer, (in French,) 3 do. • • • • 4 50 

Germanicus, (in French,) 1 do. 25 

Triumph of the New World, (in French,) 2 do. • • • • 1 50 

United States of America, (in German,) 1 do. 1 50 

Chastellux, Discourse on the Advantage of the Dis- 
covery of America, 1 do. 1 00 

A German Book, 1 do. 25 

The French Mercury, (in French,) 4 do. 3 00 

Essay on Weights, Measures, &c., 2 do. 75 

History of England, 2 do. 25 

Political Journal, (in German,) 1 do. 50 

Letters in French and English, 1 do. 25 

History of the Holy Scriptures, 1 do. 25 

History of Gil Bias, 2 do. 1 00 

Telemachus, 2 do. 1 00 

Poems of M. Grecourt, 2 do. 25 

Court Register, 6 do. 12mo. 1 50 

6 Pamphlets, Political Journal, (in German,) 50 

Description of a Monument, 1 vol. 60 



APPENDIX. 313 



S cts. 

Beacon Hill, 1 vol. 25 

Letters in the English and German Language, 1 do.' 25 

A Family Housekeeper, 1 do. 25 

Pamphlets of different descriptions 15 00 

Maps, Charts, &'c. 

Chart of Navigation from the Gulf of Honda tol 

Philadelphia, by Hamilton Moore, i <q qq 

to 

Bay of Fundy, do. 
Griffith's Map of Pennsylvania and Sketch of Del- 
aware 8 00 

HoweU's large Map of Pennsylvania 10 00 

Henry's Map of Virginia 8 00 

Bradley's Map of the United States 5 00 

Holland's Map of Xew Hampshire 3 00 

Ellicotts Map of the West End of Lake Ontario • • ■ 4 00 
Hutchins's Map of the Western Part of Virginia, 

Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Xorth Carolina ■ • • • 3 00 

Adlum and Williams's Map of Pennsylvania 2 00 

Map of Kennebec River, &c. 1 00 

Andrews's MiHiary Map of the Seat of War in the 

Netherlands 1 00 

Howell's small Map of Pennsylvania 2 00 

Great Canal between Forth and Clyde 2 00 

Plan of the Line between North Carolina and Vir- 
ginia 2 00 

M'Murraj-'s Map of the United States 3 00 

Military Plans of the American Revolution 8 00 

Evans's Map of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New 

York, and Delaware 1 00 

Plan of the ^Mississippi from the River Iberville to 

the River Yazoo 2 00 

07 



314 APPENDIX. 

S cts. 

Map of India 5 00 

Chart of France 1 00 

Map of the AVorld 50 

Map of the State of Connecticut 2 00 

Spanish Maps 50 

Table of Commerce and Population of France 50 

Battle of the Nile, &c. 100 

Koutes and Order of Battle of Generals St. Clair 

and Harmer 1 00 

Truxtun on the Rigging of a Frigate 1 00 

View of the Encampment of West Point * • • • 50 

Emblematic Prints 4 00 

Plan of the Government House of New York 50 

Chase and Action between the Constellation and 

Insurgent, (2 prints,) « 4 00 

General Wilkinson's Map of Part of the Western 

Territory 1 00 

Plan of Mount Vernon by John Vaughan 1 00 

Specimen of Penmanship 50 

5 Plans of the Federal City and District - • • 5 00 

1 Large Draught 3 00 

Plan of the City of New York Panopticon 80 

Hoop's Map of the State of New York 100 

Howell's Pocket Map of the State of Pennsylvania- • 2 00 

A French Map of the Carolinas 2 00 

Fry and Jefferson's Map of Virginia 2 00 

Howell's small Map of Pennsylvania 2 00 

A Map of New England 2 00 

9 Maps of different Parts of Virginia and Carolina, 

and also a Number of loose Maps 52 00 

Carlton's Map (2 sets) of the Coasts of North 

America 8 00 

Treatise on Cavalry, with large Cuts 50 00 



APPENDIX. 315 



Walker's View in Scotland 3 00 

A large Portfolio with sundry Engravings 40 00 

Alexander's Victories, 26 prints 100 00 

8 Reams of large folio Paper 40 00 

2 Reams of small Paper 8 00 

13 Reams of Letter Paper 39 00 

5 Whole Packages of Sealingwax 5 00 

5 Leaden Paper Presses 5 00 

6 Blank Books • 18 00 

13 Small Books 2 00 

1 Large Globe 50 00 

1 Trunk 6 00 

Books omitted. 

Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 4 vols. 8vo. 20 00 

Smollet's History of England, 1 do. 11 00 

Handmaid to the Arts, 2 do. 2 00 

Bancroft on Permanent Colors, 1 do. 1 00 

1 Theodolite 50 00 

****** 

Plate belonging to Mount Vernon. 

44 lbs. 15 oz. 900 00 

Plated Ware. 

2 Bottle Stands • 2 00 

1 Large Waiter 8 00 

2 Waiters, 2d size 6 00 

4 Walters 8 00 

1 Bread Basket 8 00 

1 Fish Knife 2 00 

6 Salt Stands 12 00 

4 Bottle Sliders 4 00 



316 APPENDIX. 

$ cts. 

1 Coffee Urn 8 00 

1 Tea Urn 20 00 

4 Pair of high Candlesticks 40 00 

3 Pair of Chamber Candlesticks 9 00 

1 Set of Casters 20 00 

2 Cream Dishes 6 00 

2 Sugar Dishes 8 00 

2 Mustard-pots 4 00 

7 Salts 17 00 

Wine Strainer 1 50 

1 Cream-pot 3 00 

1 Snuffer Stand 1 00 

1 Muffin Dish 3 00 

1 Tea Urn 50 00 

2 Pair of high Candlesticks 30 00 

1 Pair of small Candlesticks 3 00 

1 Lamp 10 00 

1 Bread Basket 10 00 

1 Ladle 50 

1 Pair of large Coolers 60 00 

2 Pair of small Coolers 60 00 

1 Waiter 10 00 

^ * M^ * * * 

Sum total $27,158 34 

The whole number of Negroes left by General Washing- 
ton, in his own right, is as follows : — 

Men 40 

Women 37 

Working Boys 4 

Working Girls 3 

Children 40 

Total 124 



APPENDIX. 317 

■whom Mrs. Washington intending to liberate at the end 
of the present year, can only be valued for the service of 
the working negroes for one year.* 

$ cts. 

Amount brought forward 27,158 34 

Books omitted, and a Theodolite 84 00 

Stock 29,212 00 

Cash on hand 254 70 

Diamond Eagle 387 00 

Addition to Buckles • • • • 200 00 

$57,296 04 

In obedience to the annexed order of Court, we, the sub- 
scribers, being duly sworn, have viewed and appraised all 
the personal property of the late General George Washing- 
ton, deceased, which was presented to us for that purpose, 
agreeably to the foregoing schedule. 

Signed by Thomson Mason, 
Tobias Lear, 
Thomas Peter, 
Wm. H. Foote. 

Note. 
A great many of the titles of the books in the foregoing inventory 
are very imperfectly, some of them very inaccurately given. Most 
of these errors probably existed in the original appraisement. Of 
sevei'al of them the correction was obvious; others have been cor- 
rected conjecturally ; but for want of means to restore the true read- 
ing, others have been necessarily left, as they stand in the copy of 
the inventory furnished for this work. 



* No valuation of this item is carried out in the Inventory. 



318 APPENDIX. 



No. m. 

[The interest whicli attaches to everything connected 
mth Mount Vernon, has led to the insertion of the following 
copy of the Will of Mrs. Washington, which, it is believed, 
has never before been printed. It was kindly furnished 
from the office of the Clerk of Fairfax County, by Mr. 
Thomas Moore.] 

THE WILL OF MARTHA WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 

In the name of God, Amen. 

I, Martha Washington, of Mount Vernon, in the 
County of Fairfax, being of sound mind and capable of dis- 
posing of my worldly estate, do make, ordain, and declare 
this to be my last Will and Testament, hereby revoking all 
other wills and testaments by me heretofore made. 

Imprimis. — It is my desire that all my just debts may be 
punctually paid, and that as speedily as the same can be done. 

Item. — I give and devise to my nephew, Bartholomew 
Dandridge, and his heirs, my lot in the town of Alexandria, 
situate on Pitt and Cameron Streets, devised to me by my 
late husband, George Washington, deceased. 

Item. — I give and bequeath to my four nieces, Martha W. 
Dandridge, Mary Dandridge, Frances Lucy Dandridge, and 
Frances Henley, the debt of two thousand pounds due from 
Lawrence Lewis and secured by his bond, to be equally 
divided between them or such of them as shall be alive at my 
death, and to be paid to them respectively on the days of 
their respective marriage or arrival at the age of twenty-one 
years, whichsoever shall first happen, together with all the 
interest on said debt remaining unpaid at the time of my 
death ; and in case the whole or any part of the said princi- 



APPENDIX. 319 

pal sum of two thousand pounds shall be paid to me during 
my life, then it is my will that so much money be raised out 
of my estate as shall be equal to what I shall have received 
of the said principal debt, and distributed among my four 
nieces aforesaid as herein has been bequeathed ; and it is my 
meaning that the interest accruing after my death on the 
said sum of two thousand pounds shall belong to my said 
nieces, and be equally divided between them or such of them 
as shall be alive at the time of my death, and be paid annu- 
ally for their respective uses, until they receive their shares 
of the principal. 

Item. — I give and bequeath to my grandson, George Wash- 
ington Parke Custis, all the silver plate of every kind of 
which I shall die possessed, together with the two large 
plated coolers, the four small plated coolers, with the bottle 
casters, and a pipe of wine, if there be one in the house at 
the time of my death ; also the set of Cincinnati tea and 

table china, the bowl that has a in it, the fine old china 

jars which usually stand on the chimney-piece in the new 
room ; also all the family pictures of every sort and the pic- 
tures painted by his sister, and two small screens worked one 
by his sister and the other a present from Miss Kitty Brown ; 
also his choice of prints ; also the two girandoles and lus- 
tres that stand on them ; also the new bedstead which I 
caused to be made in Philadelphia, together with the bed, 
mattress, bolsters, and pillows, and the white dimity curtains 
belonging thereto; also two other beds with bolsters and 
pillows, and the white dimity window-curtains in the new 
room ; also the iron chest and the desk in my closet which 
belonged to my first husband; also all my books of every 
kind except the large Bible and prayer-book ; also the set 
of tea china that was given me by Mr. Yan Braam, every 
piece having fH, 55y. on it. 

Item. — I give and bequeath to my grand-daughter, Martha 
Peter, my writino-table and the seat to it standing in my 



320 APPENDIX. 

chamber, also the print of General Washington that hangs in 
the passage. 

Item. — I give and bequeath to my grand-daughter, Eliza- 
beth Parke Law, the dressing-table and glass that stands in 
the chamber called the yellow room, and General Washing- 
ton's picture painted by Trumbull. 

Item. — I give and bequeath to my grand-daughter, Eleanor 
Parke Lewis, the large looking-glass in the front parlour and 
any other looking-glass which she may choose ; also one of 
the new sideboard tables in the new room ; also twelve 
chairs with green bottoms to be selected by herself; also the 
marble table in the garret ; also the two prints of the Dead 
Soldier, a print of the Washington family in a box in the 
garret, and the great chair standing in my chamber ; also all 
the plated ware not hereinbefore otherwise bequeathed ; 
also all the sheets, table-linen, napkins, towels, pillow-cases 
remaining in the house at my death ; also three beds and 
bedsteads, curtains, bolsters, and pillows for each bed such 
as she shall choose, and not herein particularly otherwise 
bequeathed, together with counterpanes and a pair of blank- 
ets for each bed ; also all the wineglasses and decanters of 
every kind, and all the blue and white china in common use. 

Item. — It is my will and desire that all the wine in bottles 
in the vaults be equally divided between my grand-daughters 
and grandson, to each of whom I bequeath ten guineas to 
buy a ring for each. 

Item. — It is my will and desire that Anna Maria Washing- 
ton, the daughter of my niece, be put into handsome mourn- 
ing at my death, at the expense of my estate ; and I bequeath 
to her ten guineas to buy a ring. 

Item. — I give and bequeath to my neighbor, Mrs. Eliza- 
beth Washington, five guineas to get something in remem- 
brance of me. 

Item. — I give and bequeath to Mrs. David Stuart five 
guineas to buy her a ring. 



APPENDIX. 321 

Item. — I give and bequeath to Benjamin Lincoln Lear one 
hundred pounds specie, to be vested in funded stock of the 
United States immediately after my decease, and to stand ia 
his name as his property, which investment my executors are 
to cause to be made. 

Item. — When the vestry of Truro parish shall buy a glebe, 
I devise, will, and bequeath that my executors shall pay one 
hundred pounds to them in aid of the purchase, provided the 
said purchase be made in my lifetime or within thi-ee years 
after my decease. 

Item. — It is my will and desire that all the rest and residue 
of my estate of whatever kind and description, not herein 
specifically devised or bequeathed, shall be sold by the exec- 
utors of this my last will for ready money, as soon after my 
decease as the same can be done, and that the proceeds 
thereof together with all the money in the house and the 
debts due to me (the debts due from me and the legacies 
herein bequeathed being first satisfied) shall be invested by 
my executors in eight per cent, stock of the funds of the 
United States, and shall stand on the books in the name of 
my executors in their character of executors of my will ; and 
it is my desire that the interest thereof shall be applied to 
the proper education of Bartholomew Henley and Samuel 
Henley, the two youngest sons of my sister Henley, and also 
to the education of John Dandridge, son of my deceased 
nephew John Dandridge, so that they may be severally 
fitted and accomplished in some useful trade ; and to each of 
them who shall have lived to finish his education, or to reach 
the age of twenty-one years, I give and bequeath one hun- 
dred pounds to set him up in his trade. 

Item. — My debts and legacies being paid, and the educa- 
tion of Bartholomew Henley, Samuel Henley, and John Dan- 
dridge aforesaid being completed, or they being all dead 
before the completion thereof, it is my will and desire that 



322 APPENDIX. 

all my estates and interests in "whatever form existing, 
whether in money, funded stock, or any other species of 
property, shall be equally divided among all the persons 
hereinafter named, who shall be livhig at the time that the 
interest of the funded stock shall cease to be applicable, in 
pursuance of my will hereinbefore expressed, to the educa- 
tion of my nephews, Bartholomew Henley, Samuel Henley, 
and John Dandridge, namely, among Anna Maria Washing- 
ton, daughter of my niece, and John Dandridge, son of my 
nephew, and all my great-grandchildren living at the time 
that the interest of the said funded stock shall cease to be 
applicable to the education of the said B. Henley, S. Hen- 
ley, and John Dandridge, and the interest shall cease to be 
so applied when all of them shall die before they arrive to 
the age of twenty-one years, or those living shall have fin- 
ished their education or have arrived to the age of twenty- 
one years, and so long as any one of the three lives who has 
not finished his education or arrived to the age of twenty- 
one years, the division of the said residuum is to be deferred, 
and no longer. 

Lastly, I nominate and appoint my grandson, George 
Washington Parke Custis, my nephews, Julius B. Dandridge 
and Bartholomew Dandridge, and my son-in-law, Thomas 
Peter, executors of this my last will and testament. 

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this 
twenty-second day of September, in the year eighteen 
hundred. 

MARTHA WASHINGTON [seal] 

Sealed, signed, acknowledged and"] 
delivered as her last will and j Roger Farrell, 
testament, in the presence of us I William Spence, 
the subscribing witnesses, who 
have been requested to subscribe 
the same as such in her presence. J 



Lawrence Levtis, 
Martha Peter. 



APPENDIX. 323 

March 4th, 1802 * 

I give to my grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, 
my mulatto man Elish, that I bought of Mr. Butler Washing- 
ton, to him and his heirs forever. 

M. WASHINGTON. 

At a Court held for Fairfax County the 21st day of June, 
1802,— 

This last will and testament of Martha Washington, de- 
ceased, was presented in Court by George Washington 
Parke Custis and Thomas Peter, two of the executors 
therein named, who made oath thereto, and the same being 
proved by the oaths of Roger Farrell, WilHam Spence, and 
Lawrence Lewis, three of the subscribing witnesses thereto, 
is, together with a codicil or memorandum indorsed thereon, 
ordered to be recorded, and the said executors having per- 
formed what the law requires, a certificate is granted them 
for obtaining a probate thereof in due form. 

Teste 

WM. MOSS, CI. 
A copy. 

Teste 
THOMAS MOORE, D. C. 

* Mrs. Washington died on the 22d of May, 1802. 



INDEX. 



A. 



Account-Book, Washington's, as Commander-in-chief, auto- 
graph, 111. Lithographed, in facsimile, 111. 

Acute laryngitis, the disease of which Washington died, 
275. See Inflammation. 

Adams, John, proposes Washington to Congress as Com- 
mander-in-chief, 110. Chosen first Vice-President of 
the United States, 171. Nominates Washington as 
Commander-in-chief in the prospect of a war with 
France, 230. 

Ames, Fisher, his celebrated speech in Congress on Jay's 
Treaty, 199. 

Andre, John, his condemnation and execution as a spy, 
144, 145. 

Annapolis, Washington resigns his commission to Congress 
in session there, 150-153. 

Army, Continental, Its wretched condition at the beginning 
of the Ke volution, 112-114. 

Arnold, Benedict, his treason discovered by Washington, 
144. 

Articles at Mount Vernon, Inventory of, with their appraised 
value annexed, 286-317. 

* This Index was prepared, at Mr. Everett's request, by Charles 
FoLSOM, Esq., of Cambridge. 



326 INDEX. 

Ayen, Duchess d', mother of Madame Lafayette, perishes 
by violence in the French Eevolution, 210. 



B. 



Ball, Mary, becomes the second wife of Augustine Wash- 
ington, and mother of George, 22. See Washington, 
Mary. 

Bassett, George W., of Hanover County, possesses the 
Washington Family Bible, 19. 

Battle of Bennington, 133. Of the Brandywine, 132. Of 
Germantown, 133. Of Long Island, 120. Of Mon- 
mouth, 138. Of the Monongahela, 74, 75. 

Bavaria^ a branch of the Washington family established in, 
25. 

Belvoir, the seat of Wm. Fairfax near Mt. Vernon, 39. 
Influence on Washington of the society there, 43, 44. 

Bennington, battle of, 133. 

Bible, of Washington's mother, contains the record of his 
birth and baptism, 19. In the possession of George W. 
Bassett, of Hanover County, 19. 

BiNNEY, Horace, his " Inquiry into the Formation of 
Washington's Farewell Address," 212. 

Black, Messrs., at the suggestion of Lord Macaulay, apply 
to Mr. Everett for a memoir of Washington, for the 
" EncyclopEedia Britannica," i. 

Bonaparte, Joseph, for the French Republic, concludes 
' a treaty of peace with the United States, 235. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, demands the liberation of La- 
fayette, 210. Washington foresees the possibility of 
being brought into conflict with him in case of a French 
war, 232. 

Books, Washington's, at Mt. Vernon, catalogue of, 296-315. 



INDEX. 327 

Border life, Washington's letter on his early experience in, 
44, 45. 

Boston, Washington meditates an assault on, 115. The Brit- 
ish compelled to evacuate, 116. 

Braddock, General, invites Washington to join his mili- 
tary family in his expedition, 72. His disastrous defeat 
and death, 73, 74. 

Brandywine, battle of the, 132. 

Brooks, Christopher, godfather of Washington, 20. 

Brougham, Lord, his contrast of Napoleon and Washing- 
ton, 264. 

BuRGOYNE, General, enters Canada, 131. Capitulates to 
General Gates at Saratoga, 133. 

Butler, Jane, first wife of Augustine Washington, father 
of George, 22. 



Cambridge, Massachusetts, Washington's first head-quarters 
at, 112. 

Carey, Colonel, of Hampton, 42. His daughters early 
friends of Washington, 44. 

Carleton, Sir Guy, surrenders New York at the close 
of the war, 150. 

Cavaliers, resort to Virginia in the time of Cromwell, 23. 

Cicero, cited, 145. 

Clinton, Sir Henry, succeeds Sir William Howe in com- 
mand, 137. Evacuates Philadelphia, 137. 

Congress of the Confederation, powerless to raise a revenue, 
161. Recommends to the States to send delegates to a 
Federal Convention, 165. Refers to the several States 
the Constitution framed by that Convention, 169. 

Congress of the United States, the first, holds its first session 
in 1789, at New York, 172. 



328 INDEX. 

Constitution of the United States, framed by the Federal 
Convention, 167. Communicated to the Congress of the 
Confederation, 167. Referred to the several States for 
adoption, 167. Adopted in 1788, 169. 

Convention, the Federal, 167. 

Comoay Cabal, the, 134, 135. Washington's dignified con- 
duct in relation to it, 135. 

CoRNWALLis, Lord, intrenches himself in Yorktown, 147. 
Surrenders to the combined American and French 
armies, 147. 

Cotton, unknown as an American production by the negotia- 
tors of Jay's treaty, in 1 794, 196. 

Craik, Dr. James, surgeon in Braddock's army, the 
friend and physician of Washington, 75. His anec- 
dote of an Indian chief, 75. Accompanies Washington 
to Pittsburg in 1770, 92. His medical treatment of 
Washington's last sickness defended, 284. 

Culpepper, Lord, the original grantee of Lord Fairfax's 
domains in Virginia, 40. 

Curtis, George T., his " History of the Constitution," 
quoted, 168. 

CusTis, George W. Parke, grandson of Mrs. Washington, 
adopted by her husband, 87. Places an inscription on 
the site of the house of Washington's mother, 20. His 
" Recollections and Memoirs of Washington," vi. 

CusTis, Martha, widow of Col. John Custis, married to 
Washington, 84. See Washington, Martha. 



D. 

Daveis, President, his augury of Washington's future 

greatness, 76. 
DiNWiDDiE, Governor, renews Washington's appointment 

as Adjutant- General of the northern division of Vir- 



INDEX. 329 

ginia, 52. Despatches him to remonstrate with the 

French commandant near Venango, 60 et seq. 
Dorchester Heights, fortified, 116. Attempt to dislodge the 

Americans from, frustrated, 116. 
DuER, W. A., his personal recollections of "Washington, 

quoted, 224. 
Durhamshire, the residence of the Washington family, where 

it first took the name from the manor of Wessyngton, 

in the twelfth century, 27. 



E. 

Eastern States, President Washington's tour through, in 

1789, 185. 
Ecton, in Northamptonshire, residence of the Franklin 

family, 26. 
England, dissatisfied with the execution of the treaty of 

peace, 177. Refuses to give up the Western posts, 189. 

Negotiates a commercial treaty with the United States 

through Mr. Jay, 195. 
Erskine, Lord, his expression of an " awful reverence" for 

Washington, 263. 
EsTAiNG, Count d', arrives in the American waters, 140. 

His ill success against the royal forces in Newport, 141. 

Pursued by the British fleet to the West Indies, 142. 



Fairfax, George William, the early friend of Wash- 
ington, 42. 

Fairfax, Lord, his character, 41. Author of papers in 
" The Spectator," 41. His extensive estates in Virginia, 
40. Engages young Washington to survey them, 44. 



330 INDEX. 

Fairfax, William, his seat near Mount Vernon, 39. 
Effect on Washington of intimacy in his family, 42. 

Fareioell Address^ Washington's^ its origin and composition, 
211-221. Binney's " Inquiry into the Formation" of it, 
commended, 212. 

Federal Convention, the, unanimously elects Washington its 
President, 166. Holds its debates in a committee of the 
"vvhole, Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts in the chair, 
by the appointment of the President, 167. Frames the 
Constitution of the United States, and communicates it 
to the Congress of the Confederation, 167. 

FoNTANES, M., his funeral oration on Washington, by direc' 
tion of Napoleon, 264. 

Forbes, General, commands the expedition against Foii 
Duquesne, 80. 

Fort Duquesne, taken possession of by Washington in 1758, 
and named Fort Pitt, 80, 81. 

Fort Necessity, built by Washington at Great Meadows, 69. 
Surrendered to the French, 71. 

Fort Washington, on the Hudson, invested by the British 
and forced to capitulate, 122. 

Fox, Charles James, his remarks on Washington's char- 
acter, 263. 

France, contends with England for the exclusive possession 
of the eastern portion of the American continent, 53 et 
seq. Opposes the Ohio Company's projects of settlement 
of the country beyond the Alleghanies, 50 et seq. 

Franklin Benj., American Commissioner in Paris, 136. 

Franklin family, established in Northamptonshire, within 
a few miles of the Washington family, 25. 

Franklin Josiah, father of Benjamin, emigrates from 
Northamptonshire to New England in 1685, 26. 

Fry, Colonel, by his death Washington becomes com- 
mander-in-chief at Great Meadows, 68. 

Furniture at Mount Vernon, inventory of, 286-296. 



INDEX. 331 



Gage, Thomas, Colonel in Braddock's army, afterwards 
Governor of Massachusetts, 73. 

Gates, General, his brilliant success at Saratoga, 133. 
Lends himself to the Conway Cabal, 134. 

Genet, " Citizen," Minister from the French Republic, his 
seditious proceedings, 192. Quelled by Washington, 
192. 

Gerard, M., the French minister, his official report of the 
great qualities of Washington, 142. 

Germantown, battle of, 133. 

Gist, Captain, a pioneer on the Monongahela, accompa- 
nies Washington to Venango, 60. Prevented by Wash- 
ington from putting a treacherous Indian to death, 62. 

GoRHAM, Nathaniel, of Massachusetts, appointed by 
Washington as chairman of the committee of the whole 
in the Federal Convention, 167. 

Grasse, Count de, arrives in the Chesapeake, with a 
French fleet and troops, 146. 

Great Britain. See England. 

Greenway Court, in the valley of the Shenandoah, the 
baronial residence of Lord Fairfax, 41. 

Gregory, Mildred, god-mother of Washington, 20. 

Grimes, Miss, the " lowland beauty," the object of Wash- 
ington's early love, 42. 

GuizoT, M.j his Essay on the character of Washington, 265. 



H. 



Hale, Sir Matthew, early influence of his " Contempla- 
tions" on Washington's character, 36. 



332 INDEX. 

Hallam, Henry, his death a loss to science and letters, ix. 

Hamilton, Alexander, first Secretary of the Treasury, 
1 78. Leader of one of the two great political parties, 
182. His views sustained by Washington, 182. Re- 
tires from the cabinet, 183. His connection with the 
formation of the Farewell Address, 215 et seq. Wash- 
ington's last letter was written to him, 237. 

Hanbury, Thomas, a London associate of the Ohio Com- 
pany, 56. 

Hartburn, or Hertburn, on the banks of the Tees, the former 
residence of the family that first took the name of Wes- 
syngton, or Washington, 27. 

Head- Quarters, Washington's at Cambridge, now owned and 
occupied by Mr. Longfellow, 112, note. 

Heard, Sir Isaac, writes to Washington concerning his 
genealogy, 28. Washington's reply to him, 28. 

Henry, Patrick, his eulogy of Washington as a member 
of the Continental Congress, 90, 

Hertburn, Walter de, the earliest progenitor of the 
family of Washington, exchanges, in the twelfth century, 
his village of Hertburn for the manor of Wessyngton, 
and his family adopts this name, 27. 

Hessian mercenaries, one thousand captured at Trenton, 
126. 

HouDON, his statue of Washington at Richmond, 262. 

House of Burgesses of Virginia, Washington many years 
a member of it till the war began, 87. His rule of 
conduct in, 88, 89. A school to him of civil affairs 
and of politics, 101. 

Howe, Lord, arrives with full powers as a Commissioner, 
117. His unsuccessful attempt to communicate with 
"George Washington, Esq" 118. 

Howe, Gen. Sir William, is forced to evacuate Boston, 
116. Sails for Halifax, 117. Concentrates his forces 



INDEX. 333 

near New York, 117. Eeinforced by CUnton and 
Cornwallis, 117. Enters Philadelphia, 132. 

Humboldt, Alexander, his death a loss to science and 
letters, ix. 

Hunting Creek, the original name of Mount Vernon, 38. 



Inflammation of the lanjnx, the disease of which Washington 
died, 275. Nature of the disease, 275-279. Its treat- 
ment, 279 et seq. Dr. Baillie's method, 280. Dr. Wat- 
son's, 280. Treatment of it by Washington's physi- 
cians justified, 284. 

Iron chest, contents of Washington's, at Mt. Vernon, 295, 296. 

Irving, Washington, liis "Life of Washington," com- 
mended, ii. 27. 

J. 

Jackson, Dr. James, his Memoir on the last sickness of 

Washington, 273-285. 
Jay, John, special minister to England, 195. His treaty, 

and its unpopularity, 195 et seq. 
Jefferson, Thomas, first Secretary of State, 178. Leader 

of one of the two great political parties, 181. Retires 

from the Cabinet, 183. 
Jumonville, a French leader, killed at Great Meadows, 68. 

Not "assassinated," 71. 



K. 



King, Rufus, his testimony to the English estimate of 
Washington's character, 263. 



334 INDEX. 

I^ox, Henry, in Washington's Cabinet, first Secretary of 
War, 181. 



Laboulaye, Edward, his opinion of the mihtary genius of 
Washington, 265. 

Lafayette, General, introduced to Washington in 1777, 
and enters the American service, 131. Wounded at the 
battle of the Brandy wine, 132. Returns from France 
"with the promise of an auxiliary army, 143. Denounced 
by the Jacobins, 208. Escapes from his army and gives 
himself up to the Prussians, 207. Imprisoned at 
Olmtitz, 209. His release vainly sought by Washing- 
ton, and extorted by Napoleon, 209, 210. 

Lafayette, George W., escapes from France, and finds 
a home at Mount Vernon, 210. 

Lafayette, Madame, imprisoned in Paris, 210. Wash- 
ington endeavors to contribute to her relief, 209. 

Laryngitis, acute, the disease of which Washington died, 275. 
See Inflammation. 

Lear, Tobias, private secretary of Washington, 238. His 
account of the last illness, death, and funeral of Wash- 
ington, 238 et seq. 

Lee, Arthur, born in Washington's native county, 21. 

Lee, Gen. Charles, his remissness and insubordination, 
123. Brought to a court martial, 139. Leaves the 
army, 140. His treason lately estabhshed beyond doubt 
by original documents, 140, note. 

Lee, Francis, born in Washington's native county, 21. 

Lee, Gen. Henry, born in Washington's native county, 
21. 

Lee, Richard Henry, born in Washington's native county, 
21. 



INDEX. 335 

Lee, Thomas, born in Washington's native county, 21 

Lee, William, (Washington's favorite servant " Billy,") 
testamentary provision for him, 225. 

Letters, spurious, attributed to Washington, 95. Officially 
disowned by him at the close of his Presidency, 225. 

Library of Washington^ catalogue of the, 296-315. 

LiSTOJsr, Lady, wife of the British minister, at Washington's 
farewell dinner, 223. 

Long Island, battle of, 120. 

LossiNG, Benson J., his " Mount Vernon and its Associa- 
tions," vi. His edition of G. W. P. Custis's "Recollec- 
tions and Memoirs of AVashington," vi. 

Louis-Philippe, (as Duke of Orleans,) a visitor at Mount 
Vernon, 211. 

M. 

Macaulay, Lord, invited to write the article on Wash- 
ington for the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," advises the 
publishers to apply to Mr. Everett, iii. His premature 
decease a loss to science and letters, viii. His bril- 
liancy as a writer, viii. His character as an historian 
and a man, ix., x. Personal tribute to his memory, xi., 
xii. 

Mackay, Captain, at Great Meadows, claims precedency 
of Washington, 70. 

Mackenzie, Captain, Washington's letter to him, in 1775, 
on the independence of the Colonies, 97. 

Madison, James, leader of the opposition in the House of 
Representatives, 194. His connection with the forma- 
tion of the Farewell Address, 213. 

Magaw, Colonel, capitulates at Fort Washington, 122. 

Marshall, Chief Justice, his " Life of Washington " a 
great national work, ii. Quoted, 197, 198. 



336 INDEX. 

Mason, George, the friend of Washington, draws the plan 

of the non-importation association, 96. 
Medals at Mount Vernon, 296. 
" Memoir of the Last Sickness of General Washington" by 

Dr. James Jackson, 273-285. 
Mercer, Gen., killed at the battle of Princeton, 128. 
Military education, Washington's at Mount Vernon, 49. 
Military schools, none in England in the middle of the last 

century, 48. Washington's last letter relates to the 

establishment of one in the United States, 237. 
Monmouth, battle of, 138. 
Monongahela, battle of the, 74, 75. 
Monroe, President, born in Washington's native county, 

21. 
Moore, G. H., establishes the treason of General Charles 

Lee by original documents, 140. 
Morris, Col. Roger, aid to Gen. Braddock, wounded, 74. 

A successful rival of Washington, marries Miss Phil- 

lipse, 85. 
Morristown, Washington's head-quarters at, 128. 
Mount Vernon, visited by Washington only twice during the 

eight years of the war, 154. Bequeathed to Bushrod 

Washington, 256. Its last private owner John A. 

Washington, 257. Sold by him to " The Ladies' Mount 

Vernon Association of the Union," 257. 
Mount Vernon Association of the Union, The Ladies% pur- 
chases Mount Vernon of John A. Washington, 257. 



N. 



Negroes, number of, left by Washington in his own right, 
316, Not appraised in the inventory of his prop- 
erty, 316. By his will, to be freed and provided for, 253. 



INDEX. 337 

Neutrality, proclamation of, towards England and France, 
191. 

Newhurg, on the Hudson, the final head-quarters of the 
American army, 148. 

Newhurg Address, its dangerous tendency neutralized by the 
influence of Washington, 149. 

New England, the retreat of the Puritans in the period 
which preceded the Commonwealth, 23. 

NoAiLLES, Countess of, sister of Madame Lafayette, per- 
ishes by violence in the French Revolution, 210. 

NoAiLLES, Duchess of, grandmother of Madame La- 
fayette, perishes by violence in the French Revolution, 
210. 

Northampton, England, Washington's remote ancestor mayor 
of, 22. 

Northern Neck of Virginia, contains Washington's native 
county, 21. 

O. 

Ohio Company, formed for the settlement of the country 

beyond the Alleghanies, 56. Opposed by the French 

colonial government in Canada, 58. 
Orleans, Duke of, (afterward King Louis-Philippe,) and 

his brother, visitors at Mount Vernon, 211. 
Orme, Robert, aid to Gen. Braddock, his testimony to 

Washington's courage, 74. 
Oxford University, Lawrence Washington, the emigrant to 

Virginia, a student at, 23. 

P. 

Parties, political, their beginning in the United States, 180, 
et seq. 

29 



338 INDEX. 

Pennsylvania^ insurrection in, quelled by Washington, 205- 
207. 

Perkins, Thomas H., and Joseph Russell, of Boston, 
aid George W. Lafayette in escaping to America, 
210. 

PJiiladelphia, occupied by Gen. Howe, 132. Held for eight 
months, and evacuated by Sir Henry Clinton, 137. 

Phillips E, Mary, tradition that Washington was her suitor 
in 1756, 84. Marries his rival Col. Morris, and sur- 
vives Washington twenty-five years, 85. 

Pickering, Timothy, Secretary of State under Washing- 
ton and John Adams, 32. His testimony to the large- 
ness of Washington's hand, 32, note. 

Plate belonging to Mount Vernon, 315. 

Pope, Ann, wife of John Washington, the emigrant to Vir- 
ginia, and great grandmother of George, 24. 

Pope's Creek, a tributary to the Potomac, the house in which 
Washington was born situated on, 20. 

Potomac Paver, bounds Washington's native county, 21. 

Potomac and James Rivers, Washington explores the head 
waters of, 156. 

Potomac and James River Canal, Washington presents his 
shares in, for the endowment of collegiate institutions, 
37. 

Prescott, Robert, a British general, exchanged for Gen- 
eral Charles Lee, 138. 

Prescott, William H., his death a loss to science and 
letters, ix. 

Princeton, battle of, 127. Washington's personal danger at, 
128. 

Property, personal, left by Washington, inventory of, 286- 

317. Amount of its appraised value, 317. 
Puritans, take refuge in New England before the time of 
Cromwell, 23. 



INDEX. 339 



R. 



Rahl, Colonel, commander of the Hessians at Trenton, 

killed, 126. 
Randolph, Edmund, first Attorney-General, 181. 
Rappahannoc River, bounds Washington's native county, 21. 
RocHAMBEAU, CouNT DE, arrives at Newport with a French 

army of five thousand men, 143. 
^^ Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and 

Conversation" copied or compiled by Washington in his 

boyhood, 32. Their influence on his habits through 

life, 33. 
Russell, Joseph, and Thomas H. Perkins, of Boston, aid 

George W. Lafayette in escaping to America, 210. 
RuTLEDGE, John, his great eloquence in Congress, 90. 



S. 



St. Pierre, M. de, commandant of the French fort near 

Venango, visited by Washington, 61. 
Salary, declined by Washington as Commander-in-chief, 111. 
Scott, Sir Walter, his mistake as to the release of La- 
fayette, 209. 
Seal of Washington, shot away from his person at Braddock's 

defeat, and found eighty years afterwards on the field 

of battle, 76. 
Seven Years' War, the great national drama of the eighteenth 

century, 54. 
Shirley, William, Governor, visited by Washington, in 

Boston, in 1756, 79. 
Slavery, abolition of, Washington's opinion and wishes on 

the subject, 158-160. 



340 INDEX. 

Slaves, number of, left by Washington in his own right, 316. 
Not appraised in the inventory of his property, 316. 
By his will, to be freed and provided for, 253. 

Small-pox, Washington has it in the natural way at Barba- 
does, 50. Important effect of the event on his future ex- 
posure in the army, 50. 

South Cave, in Yorkshire, a residence of John Washington 
before his emigration to Virginia, 23. 

Southern States, President Washington's tour through, in 
1790, 185. 

Sparks, Jared, his edition of " The Writings of Washing- 
ton," commended, iv., 27. The author's obligations to 
him, vi. Justly placed by Mr. Irving "among the 
greatest benefactors of our national literature," vi. His 
" Life of Washington," quoted, 166, 273. 

" Spectator, The," Lord Fairfax a contributor to it, 41. 

Stark, Gen. his success at Bennington, 133. 

Study, Washington's, at Mt. Vernon, contents of, 293-295. 

Sulgrave, manor of, in Northamptonshire, granted to Law- 
rence Washington in 1538, 22. The name of Washing- 
ton on grave stones in the church there, 24. 

Surveying in the wilderness, Washington's letter on his expe- 
rience in, 44, 45. His pay for it a doubloon a day, 45. 
Its beneficial efiect on his after life, 45. Prepares him 
for his military education, 48. 



T. 

Tanacharison, an Indian chief at Logstown, 60. Accom- 
panies Washington to Venango, 61. 

Ternay, Chevalier de, arrives at Newport with a French 
fleet and army, 143. 

Treaty, definitive, signed at Paris in September, 1783, 148. 



INDEX. 341 

Treaty, provisional, signed at Paris in 1 782, 147. Not known 
in the United States till the spring of 1783, 149. Pro- 
claimed to the army on the 19th of April, eight years 
after the commencement of the war at Lexington, 150. 

Trenton, battle of, 126. 

Trumbull, Col., paints the battle at Princeton, 128. 

TucKERMAN, Henry T., his " Character and Portraits of 
Washington," 262, note. 



U. 

University, a national^ recommended by Washington, 37. 

V. 

Valley Forge, sad destitution of the army in the winter-quar- 
ters at, 134. 

Van Braam, Washington's interpreter at Great Meadows, 
71. 

Venango, an Indian town on French Creek, 61. 

Vernon, Admiral, his name given to Mount Vernon, 34. 

ViLLiERS, George, Duke of Buckingham, allied with the 
Washington family by marriage, 23. 

Virginia, the favorite resort of the cavaliers during Crom- 
well's government, 23. 



W. 

War of the Revolution, circumstances of its commencement, 

104-109. 
Warner, Mildred, wife of Lawrence Washington, and 

grandmother of George, 24. 



342 INDEX. 

Warton, in Lancashire, the former residence and probable 
birthplace of Lawrence Washington, of Sulgrave, 25. 

Washington, Augustine, (grandson of John, the emigrant 
to Virginia,) father of General Washington, marries first, 
Jane Butler, afterwards Mary Ball, mother of the Gen- 
eral, 22. Removes to the county of Stafford, 28. His 
death, 29. Disposition of his property, 29. 

Washington, Augustine, half-brother of George, 22. 

Washington, Betty, sister of George, 22. 

Washington, Mr. Justice Bushrod, born in Washing- 
ton's native county, 21. Inherits Mount Vernon, 256. 

Washington, Butler, half-brother of George, 22. 

Washington, Charles, brother of George, 22. 

Washington, George, his genealogy, 19-28. His letter to 
Sir Isaac Heard on the subject, 28. His parentage, birth, 
and baptism, as recorded in the family Bible, 19. Site 
of the house in which he was born, ceded to the State 
of Virginia, 20. Copies out " Rules of Civility," 32. 
Their effect on his training, 32. His education con- 
fined to the English language, 33. Receives a midship- 
man's warrant, 35. His mother opposes his accepting 
it, 35. His character moulded by his mother, 35. Few- 
ness of his books, 35. His character influenced by Sir 
Matthew Hale's " Contemplations," 37. He afterward 
appreciated a college education, and recommended a 
national university, 37. Leaves home to reside with his 
brother Lawrence at Mount Vernon, 38. His occupa- 
tions there, 39. His intimacy with the Fairfax family, 42, 
et seq. Inherits an estate opposite Fredericksburg, 29. 
His early studies, 30. His taste for practical details, 31. 
His taste for military exercises and athletic sports, 31. 
His youthful and unrequited passion for a " lowland 
beauty," 42. His regret solaced by the society at 
Belvoir, 43. Engaged at the age of sixteen by Lord 



INDEX. 343 

Fairfax to survey his vast landed possessions, 44. His 
hardships and adventures in this service for three 
years, 44-47. Appointed public surveyor, 47. Ap- 
pointed adjutant-general of Virginia troops at the age 
of nineteen, 49. Accompanies his invalid brother Law- 
rence to Barbadoes, where he takes the small-pox, 50. 
Appointed executor of his deceased brother, who be- 
queathes to him Mount Yernon, 51. Beginning of his 
public career, 53. Despatched by Gov. Dinwiddle to 
the French commandant near Venango in 1753, 60. 
Joined by Mr. Gist, 60. Performs his dangerous errand, 
61. Perils of his return, 61-64. Commands a regi- 
ment at the age of twenty-two, 67. Repels the first 
blow struck in the " Seven Years' War," 67. Capitu- 
lates at Fort Necessity, 71, Throws up his commission 
and joins Gen. Braddock as a volunteer, 72. Is aid to 
the General at " Braddock's Defeat," 74. His valor 
and wonderful escape, 75. Appointed commander-in- 
chief on the Virginia frontier, 77. Difficulties of his 
position, 78. His visit to Gov. Shirley at Boston, 79. 
His illness for four months, 80. Commands the Vir- 
ginia troops in the expedition against Fort Duquesne, 
80. Retires from the army, 84. His marriage, 84. 
Takes his seat in the Virginia House of Burgesses, 87. 
His character as a legislator, 88-90. Resides perma- 
nently at Mount Vernon, 90. His devotion" to agricul- 
ture, 91. His fondness for the chase, 91, 92. Revisits 
the Ohio, and selects lands, 92, 93. Takes the patriotic 
side before the Revolutionary War, 93, 98. Elected a 
delegate to the first Continental Congress, 97. Ap- 
pointed commander-in-chief of the Continental armies, 
110, Arrives in Cambridge and takes command, 112. 
Occupies Nook's Hill and Dorchester Heights, and 
forces the British to evacuate Boston, 115, 116. Follows 



344 INDEX. 

the British to New York, 118. Defeated in the battle 
of Long Island, 119. Retreats to White Plains, 121. 
Crosses the Hudson to -New Jersey, 122. After the 
loss of Fort Washington, he retreats through New 
Jersey, 123. Crosses the Delaware, 124. Kecrosses it, 
and surprises Trenton, 126. Marches on Princeton, 
defeats a royal force, and reverses the fortune of the 
war, 127-129. Marches to Chester to oppose the army 
of Sir William Howe, 131. Receives Lafayette, 131. 
Meets Howe on the Brandy wine, and loses the day, 132. 
Attacks the royal troops at Germantown, with only par- 
tial success, 133. His dignified conduct on the discov- 
ery of the Conway cabal, 134-136. Confidence in his 
character leads to the French aUiance, 136. Baffles Sir 
Henry Clinton near Monmouth, 138, 139. Arraigns 
Gen. Charles Lee, 139. Composes the differences be- 
tween Count d'Estaing and the American officers in 
Rhode Island, 141. Establishes his head-quarters at 
Fredericksburg, New York, 141. Tribute to his char- 
acter by M. Gerard, the French minister, 142. Meets 
Count de Rochambeau at Hartford, 144. Discovers the 
treason of Arnold, and approves the sentence of Andre, 
144, 145. Marches to Virginia to watch the movements 
of Lord Cornwallis, 146. Forces him to surrender at 
Yorktown, and puts an end to the active operations of 
the war, 147. Establishes his head-quarters at Newburg, 
148. Soothes the excitement in the army caused by 
" The Newburg Address," 149. Takes leave of his 
brother officers, and formally resigns his command, 150- 
153. Retires to Mount Yernon, 154. Revisits the 
country beyond the Alleghanies, and recommends a 
system of internal navigation, 156-158. His renewed 
devotion to agriculture, 158. His wishes and opinions 
in regard to the abolition of slavery, 159-160. Influ- 



INDEX. 345 

ence of his character throughout the country, 162. 
Appointed President of the Federal Convention which 
framed the Constitution of the United States, 167. 
Unanimously chosen President of the United States, 
171. Pays a farewell visit to his mother, 174. Her 
maternal commendation of him, 174. Repairs to New 
York, the first seat of government, 172. Takes the 
oath of office, 172. Organizes his cabinet, 178. Makes 
a tour through the Eastern States, 185. Enters on his 
second term of ofiice, unanimously reelected, 187. Pro- 
claims neutrality in relation to France and Great 
Britain, 191. Represses the insolence of Genet, 192. 
Appoints Mr. Jay special minister to England, 195. His 
firmness under the unpopularity of Jay's treaty, 198. 
Refuses to communicate his instructions to Mr. Jay 
from constitutional principle, 198-204. Quells the in- 
surrection in Pennsylvania, 205-207. Solicits the liber- 
ation of Lafayette, 209. His kindness to the family of 
Lafayette, 209-211. His " Farewell Address," its origin 
and composition, 211-222. Affecting circumstances of 
his farewell dinner as President, 223, 224. His last 
official letter, denouncing the forged correspondence, 
225. Retires to Mount Vernon, and resumes his agricul- 
tural pursuits, 226. Accepts the appointment of com- 
mander-in-chief of the armies of the United States in 
an impending war with France, 231. His last illness, 
237-249. His last words, 247. Funeral honors, and 
manifestations of public sorrow at his departure, 249- 
250. His last will, 251. His disposition of his property, 
and provision for the emancipation and care of his slaves, 
252-257. Inventory of his personal property at Mount 
Vernon, 286-317. His personal appearance in harmo- 
ny with his character, 258. His personal habits, tem- 
perament, and social qualities, 259, 260. His religious 



346 INDEX. 

character and usages, 260, 261. Portraits and statues 
of him, 262. Distinguished testimonies to his greatness, 
263-265. Final analysis of his character and genius, 
265-272. 

Washington Family, (formerly Wessyngton,) traced back 
to the 12tli century, to the county of Durham, and to 
Walter de Hertburn, whose family took the name of 
Wessyngton in the 12th century, 27. Widely spread in 
England, on the Continent, and in the United States, 
27. 

Washington, Sir Henry, a relative of John, the emi- 
grant to Virginia, signalized himself at the siege of 
Worcester, 23. 

Washington, Jane, half-sister of George, 22. 

Washington, John, great grandfather of George, emi- 
grated to Virginia in 1657, 22. Became a planter in 
Virginia, 24. Colonel in the Indian wars, 24. Gave 
his name to Washington Parish, 24. Married Ann 
Pope, 24. 

Washington, John Augustine, brother of George, 22. 

Washington, John A., procures for publication a copy of 
the inventory of Washington's personal estate and of 
Mrs. Washington's will, x. Last private owner of 
Mount Vernon, which he sells to " The Ladies' Mount 
Vernon Association of the Union," 257. 

Washington, Lawrence, mayor of Northampton, Eng- 
land, first lay proprietor of Sulgrave, and great grand- 
father of John who emigrated to Virginia, 22. Orig- 
inally from Warton, in Lancashire, 25. 

Washington, Lawrence, brother of John (the great 
grandfather of George), emigrated to Virginia in 1657, 
22. A student at Oxford, 22. 

Washington, Lawrence, oldest son of John, and grand- 
father of George, 24. Married Mildred Warner, 24. 



INDEX. 347 

WASHiNGTOisr, Lawrence, half-brother of George, 22. 
Inherits the estate near Hunting Creek, 29. Serves 
under Admiral Vernon, 34. Names his estate Mount 
Vernon, 38. Marries the daughter of William Fairfax 
of Belvoir, 39. His paternal care of his brother George, 
38. 

Washington, Lewis, the favorite nephew of the General, 
236. His account of his uncle just before his last ill- 
ness, 236. 

Washington, Martha, wife of the General, her charac- 
ter, 86. Her children adopted by him, 87. Her excel- 
lent housewifery in administering the hospitality of 
Mount Vernon, 155. At the death-bed of her husband, 
248. Her last will, 318-322. 

Washington, Mary, mother of George, left a widow, 29. 
Her intelligence and energy in managing her house- 
hold, 29. Receives a farewell visit from her son before 
he enters on the Presidency, 1 74. Her maternal com- 
mendation of him, 1 74. 

Washington, Mildred, sister of George, 22. 

Washington, Samuel, brother of George, 22. 

Washington, Sir William, eldest brother of John the 
emigrant to Virginia, married the half-sister of George 
Vilhers, Duke of Buckingham, 23. 

Washington, parish of, the birthplace of Washington, 20. 

Wellington, Duke of, sent to a military school in France, 
for want of one in England, 48. 

Wentworth, Gen., Lawrence Washington, the brother of 
George, serves with him as a captain on the Spanish 
Main, 24. 

Wessyngton, (an earlier form of Washington), name of 
a manor in Durhamshire, assumed by the family of 
William de Hertburn, who exchanged the village of 
Hertburn for the manor in the twelfth century, 27. 



348 INDEX. 

West, the great, its condition in the middle of the eighteentli 

century, 55, 56. 
Westmoreland, county of, Washington born in, 20. Famous 

as the birthplace of other distinguished men, 21. 
White, Bishop, his account of President Washington's 

farewell dinner, 223. 
White Plains, occupied by Washington, 121. Unsuccessful 

action at, 121. 
Whiting, Beverly, god-father of Washington, 20. 
Will of Mrs. Washington, 318-322. 
Winchester, head-quarters of Washington on the frontier in 

the Seven Years' War, 77. 
Worcester, Sir Henry Washington signalizes himself at the 

siege of, 23. 



